Yes I did that too where necessary, but I didn’t want to get too technical when all I was doing was comparing 2 basic systems.
Did anyone use the long over loop and tighten the dolly with the foot?
A bit hard to get used to but it did at least make it less likely that if a rope broke or something slipped, you didn’t end up on your back in a muddly puddle with a large bump on the back of the head. 
Yep. Got it nice and tight without cutting into hands too much.
Does a derelict and rusty old Jag trump a few paper mills?
As a regular at Trinity Paper Mills at Holcombe on school holidays and saturdays where my dad delivered bailed waste Richard Nuttalls and many more loaded the big reels of paper out of the bottom shed. All two high and chocked roped between the reels crossed front and back fly sheet over and off up the big steep hill usually Bury New Rd but they did use Peel Brow for a while which was even steeper.I never remember or heard of any reels coming off roping between the reels (apparently cowboy practice) but maybe it was luck.Now maybe an hoover is the safest thing to put mrs mopp in charge of playing with the flex
He probably thinks that doing a paper round counts.
Stop this, that Freightliner gear shift has just b loody terrified me.
I need ‘our hero’ (CF) to explain it to me, he knows everything about range changes and splitters.
Yes, I was taught that very early in my career, I only ever did a little bit of roping and sheeting ( I was basically a tanker man), but one day a very old ‘knight of the road’ showed me how to do a double dolly and pull it tight with your foot. You do it once and you never forget it.
Oh, and I never wore gloves
Shap by the looks of it
The Jungle Cafe was Shap wasn’t it?
Before my time to be honest.
I think both photos are on Shap middle of August, it was one of the mildest summers on record up in Bewick country. If you don’t know anything about the subject just make it up on here anything goes apparently
Having said that, if something gave way which would have otherwise sent you flying on your back, happened with the foot tightener sytem, the stamping of your foot on the ground could be almost as painful.
As to Shap, not my normal stamping ground, being based in Nottingham, unless I fancied a Heads of the Valleys holiday and loaded myself back from Scotland to South Wales, but I was familiar with the place and the Jungle which was at the southern base as far as I recall. My English/West of Scotland connection of choice was always Stainmore and in my early days was a haven in the middle of nowhere with, in the depths of winter, always a gloriously roaring log fire on the go 24/24. 
I think the back to back busses converted into a cafe was called The Eagles nest
Why would you need to use your foot to tighten a double dolly.Just hands would/should be enough to either snap the rope or splinter a pallet if you’ve tied them right and don’t know when enough is enough.
Tell us more about your load of reels which ended up in a ditch Bewick.
Meanwhile if you want it to look good you obviously call the smart guvnor out to do it with his bare ungloved hands with a photographer conveniently placed.
If you want a stack of pallets to stay on the back just getting them from GKN at Watford to Weybridge you call on the scruffy oik ex council driver who’ll tie em on the back to stay on wearing his trusty old gloves so he can do the next load without having to wait for the skin of his hands to heal.
As you found out reels are a test of bravery and no amount of lashings is ever enough to stop the zb’s from trying to fly off the deck.But it helps if you don’t rely on the sheet to do the job of the ropes.Also a tilt cover makes a bleedin recalcitrant heavy sheet to handle for a flat load.
I used the extension lead this time not enough cord on the hoover.Took me around 1 minute wearing gloves.
Look and learn mate.
No paper depots in Levered but were too bleedin many on the Thames Estuary unfortunately.Erith to Southern Print in Poole, where the Exchange and Mart was printed, was a regular job.
I’m getting worried about you CF
WHY would you have a collection of ropes in your house exactly?
In fact they look a bit like ‘specialised’ cords and black in colour.
Btw…is that your lounge or your ‘‘dungeon’’ in your cellar?
It’s certainly got that Marc Detroux vibe going on there!
All very well utilising the tilt sheet on a flat bed load but that depends if you can get help from another driver to fully strip down the tilt in to a flat bed trailer, as I mentioned in a previous post, doing this in the hot summers in Europe could be dangerous for the health for rapid dehydration or heart problems.
In the winter the ice on the roof of the tilt can significantly weigh a lot, ideally to fully strip the trailer, it will need more than one person.
To rebuild it again from a flat bed to be a tilt trailer again is dam hard work due to the weight of the sheet.
