A question from an oldun’. Is roping a sheeting loads now illegal? I haven’t seen a dolly-tied roped and sheeted load for a long while. Straps are used now on sheeted loads, which I must admit have to be safer and easier to use. I’m wondering whether the old art of roping and sheeting is now almost dead, along with most of those who used to practise it!
I’m still using a couple of my old haulage ropes… for mooring my boat.
Tone
Saw a Sunhill wagon going south on M6 this afternoon with a very tidy sheeted load 
Thanks for the heads up on that thread, CF, but the question still remains. Even though certain police forces have decided that ropes are no longer sufficient security of loads (after a whole century of proving that they are) are ropes actually illegal?
I don’t see how any police force can state that they are inadequate unless a load has shifted or fallen off, in which case it would be an insecure load.
This seems to me to be yet another cheap way of imposing fines and using lorry drivers as easy targets.
Tone
Dunno if the answer is here but here is the bible…
dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/vehicle … hicles.pdf
Maybe it is but I don’t have the time to read it!
On a brief look through I see bales should be sheeted!!!
canaldrifter:
Thanks for the heads up on that thread, CF, but the question still remains. Even though certain police forces have decided that ropes are no longer sufficient security of loads (after a whole century of proving that they are) are ropes actually illegal?
I don’t see how any police force can state that they are inadequate unless a load has shifted or fallen off, in which case it would be an insecure load.
This seems to me to be yet another cheap way of imposing fines and using lorry drivers as easy targets.
Tone
If it’s 3 points it must be illegal. 
Thanks Zippy. there’s my answer:
Lashings
6.9 The lashings and fastening devices (ropes, webbing, chains, cables, clamps etc.) should be in
sound condition and must be capable of withstanding all normal forces. To avoid movement
of the load, lashings must be properly tensioned at all times using a tensioning device
specified by the manufacturer of the lashing. Never over tension lashings by the use of levers.
The thing is, is a dolly ‘a tensioning device
specified by the manufacturer of the lashing’?
Tone
canaldrifter:
Thanks Zippy. there’s my answer:Lashing Never over tension lashings by the use of levers.
The thing is, is a dolly ‘a tensioning device
specified by the manufacturer of the lashing’?Tone
Probably a case of ‘was’ a dolly a tensioning device and is a rope now considered as a lashing.
And if you do up those mickey mouse ‘sylvesters’/‘dogs’,on an excavator with tyres,without using a piece of tubing for leverage,it won’t compress the tyres and if it then bounces on the tyres it can loosen or even snap the chains.Yet another reason to use those yank ratchet and screw type tensioners.
Carryfast:
canaldrifter:
Thanks Zippy. there’s my answer:Lashing Never over tension lashings by the use of levers.
The thing is, is a dolly ‘a tensioning device
specified by the manufacturer of the lashing’?Tone
Probably a case of ‘was’ a dolly a tensioning device and is a rope now considered as a lashing.
And if you do up those mickey mouse ‘sylvesters’/‘dogs’,on an excavator with tyres,without using a piece of tubing for leverage,it won’t compress the tyres and if it then bounces on the tyres it can loosen or even snap the chains.Yet another reason to use those yank ratchet and screw type tensioners.
Absolutely right there. In fact after some 15 years, I still have my trusty short length of scaffold pole for old times sake (and a Michelin man on the bow). The pole lives on top of my boat. It’s primary function now is to ward off unwanted boarders.
Of course, being a responsible low loader driver, I used to jack up a wheeled machine using the bucket and boom, and block up the chassis to take the bounce out!
Tone
Saw a flatbed trailer last week with what was obviously a coil of steel or similar, underneath a well secured sheet that was held by some very well tied ropes. I assume the coil beneath the sheet was secured with dogs and chains or straps of some description.
It was a vary slick looking load, on a very well looked after truck and trailer, so almost certainly a professional operator.
I can remember some horrendously dangerous loads coming out of Hulland Ward as back loads.
Paving slabs were fine stacked against the headboard with a good cross on the back, and curbs were very safe if stacked individually on the trailer bed, but it was back-breaking work to load and unload them.
Many local drivers carried them in stacks as loaded by the fork grab truck. How they thought ropes would hold them in place I have no idea. They’d chafe through in a few miles. The litter of broken curb stones through Derby streets in those days was evidence of how dangerous that practise was.
Tone
canaldrifter:
Carryfast:
canaldrifter:
Thanks Zippy. there’s my answer:Lashing Never over tension lashings by the use of levers.
The thing is, is a dolly ‘a tensioning device
specified by the manufacturer of the lashing’?Tone
Probably a case of ‘was’ a dolly a tensioning device and is a rope now considered as a lashing.
And if you do up those mickey mouse ‘sylvesters’/‘dogs’,on an excavator with tyres,without using a piece of tubing for leverage,it won’t compress the tyres and if it then bounces on the tyres it can loosen or even snap the chains.Yet another reason to use those yank ratchet and screw type tensioners.
Absolutely right there. In fact after some 15 years, I still have my trusty short length of scaffold pole for old times sake (and a Michelin man on the bow). The pole lives on top of my boat. It’s primary function now is to ward off unwanted boarders.
Of course, being a responsible low loader driver, I used to jack up a wheeled machine using the bucket and boom, and block up the chassis to take the bounce out!
Tone
But being an absolute typical zb of a guvnor of the worst sort,that you’ll only find working as a council employee,he would have said why the zb are you zb’ing about trying to lift the zb thing off it’s wheels when you should have been out of the yard and on your way and and no you can’t have any zb great big blocks to put under the zb thing and look at the zb damage you’ve done to my once perfect wooden load deck on the multilift with that zb bucket and/or jack.You should have used the lenghth of zb tubing which everyone else uses to do up the zb ‘chain tensioners’ with.Maybe now you’ll understand why I almost had to de capitate myself for him to buy those decent yank ratchet and screw ones.
canaldrifter:
Thanks Zippy. there’s my answer:Lashings
6.9 The lashings and fastening devices (ropes, webbing, chains, cables, clamps etc.) should be in
sound condition and must be capable of withstanding all normal forces. To avoid movement
of the load, lashings must be properly tensioned at all times using a tensioning device
specified by the manufacturer of the lashing. Never over tension lashings by the use of levers.The thing is, is a dolly ‘a tensioning device
specified by the manufacturer of the lashing’?Tone
No worries.
I see quite regular roped and sheeted loads of fertiliser coming out of Grow How at Ince near Ellesmere Port alot of welsh hauliers back loads home.
Gwynedd Shipping have sheeted loads aswell.
Carryfast:
canaldrifter:
Carryfast:
canaldrifter:
Thanks Zippy. there’s my answer:Lashing Never over tension lashings by the use of levers.
The thing is, is a dolly ‘a tensioning device
specified by the manufacturer of the lashing’?Tone
Probably a case of ‘was’ a dolly a tensioning device and is a rope now considered as a lashing.
And if you do up those mickey mouse ‘sylvesters’/‘dogs’,on an excavator with tyres,without using a piece of tubing for leverage,it won’t compress the tyres and if it then bounces on the tyres it can loosen or even snap the chains.Yet another reason to use those yank ratchet and screw type tensioners.
Absolutely right there. In fact after some 15 years, I still have my trusty short length of scaffold pole for old times sake (and a Michelin man on the bow). The pole lives on top of my boat. It’s primary function now is to ward off unwanted boarders.
Of course, being a responsible low loader driver, I used to jack up a wheeled machine using the bucket and boom, and block up the chassis to take the bounce out!
Tone
Then he’s a plonker. I would never work for a plonker.
But, on short distance, I had no worries about carrying wheeled machines secured by the winch. Put a chain on the rear end, triangulated, then winch up the front end taught. Brakes on. Block the wheels just in case, and it wouldn’t move far.
If things went slack you could always stop and tighten the winch cable in seconds.
Oh, and always drop the slew lock in. A lot of drivers used to forget that and ended up with a bucket dangling over the side.
Tone
Jacking the thing up and blocking the chassis was the same when we moved caravans, pneumatic tyres is for comfort or for shifting them round site. At least with heavy plant, they have built in hydraulic jacks!
canaldrifter:
Carryfast:
canaldrifter:
Carryfast:
canaldrifter:
Thanks Zippy. there’s my answer:Lashing Never over tension lashings by the use of levers.
The thing is, is a dolly ‘a tensioning device
specified by the manufacturer of the lashing’?Tone
Probably a case of ‘was’ a dolly a tensioning device and is a rope now considered as a lashing.
And if you do up those mickey mouse ‘sylvesters’/‘dogs’,on an excavator with tyres,without using a piece of tubing for leverage,it won’t compress the tyres and if it then bounces on the tyres it can loosen or even snap the chains.Yet another reason to use those yank ratchet and screw type tensioners.
Absolutely right there. In fact after some 15 years, I still have my trusty short length of scaffold pole for old times sake (and a Michelin man on the bow). The pole lives on top of my boat. It’s primary function now is to ward off unwanted boarders.
Of course, being a responsible low loader driver, I used to jack up a wheeled machine using the bucket and boom, and block up the chassis to take the bounce out!
Tone
Then he’s a plonker. I would never work for a plonker.
But, on short distance, I had no worries about carrying wheeled machines secured by the winch. Put a chain on the rear end, triangulated, then winch up the front end taught. Brakes on. Block the wheels just in case, and it wouldn’t move far.
If things went slack you could always stop and tighten the winch cable in seconds.
Oh, and always drop the slew lock in. A lot of drivers used to forget that and ended up with a bucket dangling over the side.
Tone
You obviously never hauled a knackered 8.5 tonne Muir Hill excavator/shovel on a multilift Clydesdale.No winch.For winching it was a case of drop the cables that pull the body onto the back and then use a spreader bar to attach the cables and shackle a cable to it in the centre to do the winching using the body winch machinery on the truck to pull the zb up the ramps onto the body.On my job it was all short haul council work but that just meant more time spent sorting out all the aggro of moving machinery about without any of the benefits of spending much time driving.But triangulating a single chain at the back is’nt going to provide much of a decent pull in the vertical plane on both sides and in this case it was a horizontal pull forwards with chains attached to each side around the rear axle against the two headposts on the body and individual chains through the excavator securing eyes each side at the front pulling backwards and downwards attached to big shackles on each side of the Multilift body’s chassis reached through access plates in the load deck usually for no more than around 20 mile runs sometimes less.Only up and down boom so no sideways bucket movement to worry about but the Clydesdale with all the Multilift gear was 8.5 T unladen with an 8.5 T load in the case of a Muir Hill or 9 T load in the case of the a Drott Dozer 
.It was no good telling the guvnor that it was ‘pushing’ the weight limits because it was a case of if you won’t do it someone else will with 3 million+ on the dole to choose from and of course the government never prosecute themselves But having said that even though I called the zb a few worse things than a plonker I did’nt need to use that length of tubing anymore when he bought those brilliant chain tensioners. 
But it looks like there’s a new generation of plonker guvnors still around today
Wheel Nut:
Jacking the thing up and blocking the chassis was the same when we moved caravans, pneumatic tyres is for comfort or for shifting them round site. At least with heavy plant, they have built in hydraulic jacks!
See above post.
Carryfast:
Wheel Nut:
Jacking the thing up and blocking the chassis was the same when we moved caravans, pneumatic tyres is for comfort or for shifting them round site. At least with heavy plant, they have built in hydraulic jacks!
I did see it, but you seem to be the only bloke who has ever carried difficult loads. Canal boat driver mentioned jacking & blocking, but you come out with some old pony that your boss won’t let you do your job or let you use blocks