Tips and Tricks of flatbedding

They are the tensioners for my rolling tarp. You can see them installed in this picture. They come off so they don't get destroyed by bad forklift drivers.

 

Ahh didn't see the tarp system in the last pic. You spoilt lil ####. I'll be thinking of ya next time I'm lugging my 8 fters.

 

It ain't all roses. Been gettin crap miles lately. Then today I got to chip ice out of my track to roll my tarp. I've known about the leak up front for awhile now but never got my fat butt on the ladder to seal it. It's a priority now.

 

What deters me, besides the 15k dollars, is having to give up my od loads. I've gotten to enjoy those 16 wide wings.

 

Was that a bulge in your tarp or were you just glad to be there?

 

If you get to a Home Depot or someplace, get a gallon of denatured alcohol and a spray bottle. Spray- soak the ice areas and the ice usually loosens up from the track within 5mins or so. It works good on frozen straps too, but know your truck (and gloves) will smell like a brewery if you store your straps inside after spraying them.

 

I ave a question and didn't want to start another thread. And besides all those who can answer it are already here. So today I was removing my chains and ratchet binders from my suaside coil all about 8000 pound's. With these small coils you all know how much of a pain it is attaching the ratchet binder due to it's length. The though poped into my mind.... Could I put my chains through the coil as normal but rather than using a binders could I hook the chain to a winch strap that has the chain and hook on the end. Then winch it tight. I realize the working load would be limited to the strap but what do you think?

 

Technically yes. I've seen that a lot with drivers that specialize in rail transport. They're good for short rail since you won't have any webbing over the jagged ends, but also don't have to risk walking on top of it to tighten or retighten the chain. With 5/16" G70 chain you're really not losing much WLL with a 4" strap. It's also a cheap way to tie down oversize hay, instead of shelling out for 40' straps.

Full time steel hailers will usually just throw two straps over a coil that size and go. I'll just go out to the next chain point to give me more room to fit a binder on the chain. Yeah, you do lose a bit of WLL the farther out from center you go, but under 10k two 3/8" G70 chains will still have you well over 50% WLL at any reasonable distance needed for the binders.

 

If the eye is big enough I just put my binders inside.

 

You can do it that way and make 1 chain into 2. Works great on coils 10k or less. 1 chain and 2 straps..... done.