Rolling around for a few years I've heard stories from old timers about cotton straps, leather tarps, and roping down a load. I've seen steel cable tie-downs, 10" straps, roped up a tarp, and super bags thrown over slit coils. Heading out west on a wild hair this week seeing all the outboard frame rocky mountain doubles got me to thinking about how else things used to be done. I'm interested in hearing about all the tie-downs, tarps, blocking, bracing, and other things you haven't seen in a while, because if they're still legal, they might come in handy some day on a load that wouldn't look quite right without it.
Steel cables work well for logs and crushed cars. I carry rope and rubber rope for tapping jet engines and other odd loads.
I use rubber rope or shock cord for virtually all of my tarping. Took me a bit to get the knack for it but now I find it better for almost all loads. If I didn't drop most of my tarped loads at the yard for someone else to deliver I'd switch to regular rope in a heartbeat.
I used to use hollow core rubber rope back when I did a lot of TL, but doing multi-stop and LTL wrangling 50-100' of rope when all I needed was 8 31" tarp straps is a hassle. I do get some use out of my 20' shock cord pieces for odd loads like mills and chip conveyors. I tied figure 8 knots in it about every foot so I can slip in an S-hook where needed to change directions. Never did get a hang of nylon rope, but hooks on the trailer probably would have helped with that.
I'm going to pick up some shock cord next time I get a chance because The rubber rope is kind of a pain to work with. I wish our trailers had hooks it would make it much quicker. I used to rope almost everything at maverick hauling glass. Looking at some of their drivers going down the road I'm not even sure they teach them how to use the glass tarps now.
Thank you sir. They make it easy with purpose made tarps. Those small flaps are triangle shaped. At the end of my tenure with Maverick I was tarping 3-4 loads a night preloading trailers. Now tarping one load every once and a while is pretty easy.
member: 9696"]I'm going to pick up some shock cord next time I get a chance because The rubber rope is kind of a pain to work with. I wish our trailers had hooks it would make it much quicker. I used to rope almost everything at maverick hauling glass. Looking at some of their drivers going down the road I'm not even sure they teach them how to use the glass tarps now. View attachment 192143 View attachment 192144 [/QUOTE] They won't give a #### until it starts costing them money.
If you speak to a old timer in the long a go days they used rope to secure lumber. I have been told that you could break lumber with a properly tightened rope? Tarps were made of canvas and weighed like a ton! Wire rope and u bolts were used on lots of freight.
