First of all a big thanks to everyone on here - i have finally started to be able to answer my ole man back and be right ! so great work but he is a wirely old dog and he is always looking for stuff to have a go at me about, the one area i have always not quite understood is how you work out where to load one big lump of something ? like steel coil - where do you start to put a 20 t coil of steel ? i have always thought you would put it over your back axles… but that only cause one of the lads that works with us did steel for ages… but again he said he did not get any formal training - so advice please… and would the exact positioning be different if you were on a two axle or a tri axle trailer and how do you work out what weight your putting through the king pin??
Now this is one area i am completley out of my depth with and if you dont have the individual axle weighers are there any tips for when your driving - you know like feel, so you pick up that its wrong ?
I would have thought if you put a 20t load of steel directly on the back axle it would overload that axle.
Used to do steel coils as a back load, we used to pick up 3 at a time weighing about 7t each, but each were the size of a big pallet. The first was normally placed near the pin of the trailer, the second somewhere in the middle of the pin and trailer axles and the last over the trailer axles this spread the weight evenly through the trailer.
I suppose on that principle a 20t load would go int he middle of the trailer to spread the load over the pin and the trailer axles. The only thing would be security and the stress on the neck of the trailer.
As far as loading bulk without a weigher, I used to rely on the more experienced drivers or loader to give me a guide line. With Sugar beet I seem to remember it was loaded into 5 heaps of a certain height, this seems to give a pretty accurate weight and even with my lack of experience I could get it within half a tonne of the then 38t limit.
Timber was very similar, the loaders were very good as well, adjusting the size of the for the size of the timber and for how green it was. They also wanted to know the weight when we delivered it so they had an idea of how close their loading is.
i used to load 3 coils from Alcan in Rogerstone and take 'em to Holland, the 3rd one was over the axles, you can tell if its loaded wrong, as the motor will struggle to pull it or there will be a traction issue. I hardly knew i was fully loaded with these 3 on, coming back down from Rogerstone to the M4 i was on the limiter before i was half way up the hill eastbound.
Some people like the weight to be in different places as it changes the way it feels on the road, for me i like a good bit of weight on the front axles as i personally find the lorry feels much more sure-footed into a corner, other people like it towards the back.
a heavy, but small load (in comparison to the trailer length) would go between the middle trailer axle and the trailer legs.
you may do the same with maybe 14 pallets, but you could also do the pallets in the following way.
1 at the headbourd, then 2 behind, then 1 behind that, then 2, and so on.
24 ton of hanging lambs loaded correctly would always put you overweight on the drive axle on a 2 axle unit by about 2 tons, loaded legally would be dangerous as they would swing too much.
sometimes you can’t win.
Funnily enough yesterday I spoke about this very subject with my old man in one of his demonstrations about placing loads correctly.
I was telling my Dad I reckoned I had overloaded a 7.5t recently without realising what I had done at the time (both grossly and on the axle) until after I thought about it at the end of shift. And boy did I give myself the rollicking of all rollicking of not thinking about my possible unladen weight to what I could actually load on board!
That’s when he said the comment about 20t steel coils he used to load on artics, usually his back loads
Like scotstrucker and dafdave exactly said. He did exaclty the same thing, middle of the trailer and secured it accordingly. When he was weighed or checked it himself on the weighbridge he wasn’t overloaded on his axles at all. Everything worked grand.
His biggest fear when he carried them was securing the coil adequately enough. As in an emergency situation would his securing hold it in place. He said he always went overboard with lashing it down, but there was always a slight worry in his mind if something went wrong it was going to break free and join him in the cab. Glad to say it never did and he never had any eventful journeys when he carried coils!
Can ask him for more advice if you want to PM me to help you, but I think everyone else like scotstrucker and dafdave have got it covered for you already!
As my username suggests we do coils all the time. I gave drivers some top tips for loading heavy coils, the worst ones are the 29 toners coming out of Liverpool currently. We have to calculate the position of the coil using a formula so no axles are overloaded.
We must be doing it right as I’ve had 2 trucks weighted at switch island recently by vosa and not had any problems.
Constantine:
His biggest fear when he carried them was securing the coil adequately enough. As in an emergency situation would his securing hold it in place. He said he always went overboard with lashing it down, but there was always a slight worry in his mind if something went wrong it was going to break free and join him in the cab. Glad to say it never did and he never had any eventful journeys when he carried coils!
Carried coilers once and didnt like, wasnt sure myself how to load them properly and didnt trust the people at the company that i loaded from.
Thanks lads - i hate doing general haulage… you never know what your going to have to load, you dont know half the time how to secure it properly, and if you do you end up with a bolloking at either the loading or the off loading place for being in the wrong place or “damaged”.
Coiler what type of calculation do you use and is it different for each type of trailer… i would hate to carry 29 t in one lump - do you have goal posts and a coil well for that ?
coiler:
As my username suggests we do coils all the time. I gave drivers some top tips for loading heavy coils, the worst ones are the 29 toners coming out of Liverpool currently. We have to calculate the position of the coil using a formula so no axles are overloaded.
We must be doing it right as I’ve had 2 trucks weighted at switch island recently by vosa and not had any problems.
The formula is in David Lowes book.
Measure between the kingpin and the centre of the rear trailer axle.
Glad to say it never did and he never had any eventful journeys when he carried coils! 
but that diagram is wrong as it doesn’t take into account for the overhang