Tips and Tricks of flatbedding

Maybe some photos will help. The first one is a 3 sided box culvert. You cannot chain the middle of the box or you will break it. Starting at 30k for the smaller pieces you do not want to break one.

Then you have bridge beams, and if the trailer hits one of those and breaks it you are talking weeks of time and lots and lots of money. We even use 6"x8" angle iron on the edges of the beams to protect them from being damaged by the chain. Not a big deal you say? It is when the state guy is right there and rejects a beam because of damage. We had one almost get rejected this year because of a small chip in the edge.

Here are some on a flatbed. Chains at the front and the rear over the dunnage only.

This is the best photo I could find where you can see all the chains on the bridge beam dolly and truck.You will see chains on the front bunk and rear bunk. then you will see one chain in the middle. That chain is for the neck because when we steer around corners we have to drop the neck so it does not damage the beam and it makes it easier to turn. But that neck is not rigid like a flatbed trailer will be. Once you have the neck chained up you release the hydraulic pressure into a free float mode. This allows the neck to move with the beam. On a flatbed the trailer may flex but the beam stay rigid or the beam may flex while the trailer resists moving.

This photo best illustrates what @TripleSix was trying to get at. If I were to chain the center of this beam to this stretch trailer, the trailer would bounce up and down yanking on the chain and either breaking the beam or the chain or both. I wish I would have gotten a photo of the ones this week. there was an even greater sag in the trailer because we had them stretched to the limit. Even on a flatbed the center of the trailer is going to bounce up and down.

Triple six, I hope this help you get your point across.

 

PERFECT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Couldn't ask for better pics. Anyways, this method of securement is for structural pieces. Beams, crane booms, big monopoles...etc.

 

Love your work@cnsper

 

I do too. That's the kind of driver you want. Can pull any trailer and any load. IMO, that's the definition of a heavyhauler.

Never a dull moment is it, @cnsper ?

 

Gotcha. Nothing like I was thinking. I was thinking of I beams and such. I do remember reading an exemption that basically says if you can't secure per the regs you secure it the best you can to keep it on the trailer.

 

Not it is not. You think that people don't get it when you pull a 53' trailer, try stretching to 70 feet or with bridge beams being 150' bumper to bumper.

 

Thanks six. I never thought of that but once I read you post the wording of the regs, I knew what you meant.

This was a tip out of nowhere that totally makes sense.

 

Yesterday morning I was securing a load of Frack valves at a customer and he noticed I was putting a twist in my 4" straps that were in position to catch a lot of wind. He asked me about it and I explained it was to reduce strap vibration.

Then he told me another driver told him that DOT wrote him up for having a twist in his straps. I'd never heard of any regulations saying you shouldn't have a twist.

 

It's been argued here many times. Only proof ever presented is the... My buddy's uncles neighbor got a ticket for having a twist in his strap........

 

I half twist. Almost everything over 4 feet tall . Never been taged, too many twists causing the strap to rub itself maybe. But it would look more like rope than a strap at that point.