Dan Punchard:
Shame you don’t have my work ethic commer ,you’d not only have bungees but an easy sheet too .
Any sheet is any easy sheet when you know how to use one, just ask Dennis !!
1970commer:
Bewick:
deckboypeggy:
Bewick That is not correct about further south you get sheeting was the worst,where did all your southern loads come from for trunk ,!the south ashford area is that not south…your own southern men …or were they on a weeks sabbatical from deepest ■■■■■■■■ come on southerners stick up for yourselves .What I should have said was “in general” the further south you went the worse sheeting and roping got.Our shunters and drivers we employed in the south over the years were every bit as good as our lads in the north west and could,and did,interchange with one another occaisonally.Sorry if I seemed to “broad brush” all southerners with my comments but that was always the impression I got and I didn’t drive around the Home counties with my eyes shut either
Bewick.
Alan Firmin, Len Valsler, Bowaters, all from Kent, from our neck of the woods SAY Transport (I think when you bought a couple of their old units you must have inherited their drivers sheeting skills) Brian Harris of Widecome on the Moor & Bugle Transport of St. Austell (my cousin drove for them) none of these companies were from ■■■■■■■ but all their drivers could sheet a load up equally as well as your men if not better.
Don’t forget that old saying Dennis “Self praise is no recommendation”
Be careful with that powder now !!
We appear to be getting carried away a bit here,first of all Lenny Valsler worked for Bewick Transport in the ‘70’s and his sheeting and roping skills were as fine as any you would come across in the UK,secondly I never included anyone from the south west in my resume’ !! thirdly Brian Harris was a pal of mine and any of his drivers would have slotted seamlessly into the Bewick operation with no problem.I can’t comment on the other firms you mention.
Look what he’s done to my inherited 8 wheeler tipper sheet though ,bloody ruined it !
And STILL Dennis wont tell me how long it would take to sheet and rope a loaded trailer/eight legger as I enquired several posts ago. 
Pete.
windrush:
And STILL Dennis wont tell me how long it would take to sheet and rope a loaded trailer/eight legger as I enquired several posts ago.Pete.
Sorry Pete,well dependant on the load,the location and the weather (at times) it would take anywhere around one hour and more I would say,but the individual job at any one time wasn’t on “the clock” it was just a case of making a proper tidy job,neat and tight,and fit to travel to the final destination.There were variations of course,sweating your nads off in a hot paper mill warehouse or “brass monkeys” out side in sub-zero winds !! But I recall that a couple of our shunters could load,sheet and rope,well into the teens of loads out of the factory next door to the depot from 8 am until 5 pm or so,maybe finishing the last couple by 6 pm.The paper mill shunters would load a similar number sometimes but from 6 am to 6 am.But if you were ask me I would say a good hour for one man to make a decent job,time was not important then as much as it is to-day ! Cheers Dennis.
And more often than not, you would be at home- or near- sheeting & roping for the next day’s journey, so you could afford to take a bit of time to do a decent job. Yes, Dennis, we did do a “decent job” in the Mid=West, as well!
We, too, often had to use corner boards under the sheets. It was a pain when they kept slipping off, but absolutely necessary to protect the load. Fed up with the wooden ones, which would often split though continued abuse, I got a mate in the local metal stockholders to bend me a set of aluminium ones. They were the dogs’ but I had to make sure they were out of sight at night!
Cheers Dennis, I suppose generally you were only looking to do one load a day unless you were back loading of course. An hour isn’t bad really for that size of vehicle, I guess that it all became second nature after a while. I remember one of our old tipper drivers at Tilcon who used a rope and dollies right up until he retired, most of us just used old innertubes for speed, and when he broke a sheet rope he would splice the new one in instead of just tying it to the sheet with a knot! I once asked him why he did that and of course the answer was “Because I can” which put me in my place good and proper! He is still living and is a good age, he parachuted into Arnhem so is a tough old chap.
Pete.
Ha Bewick,i do apologize for putting you in the front line,well a bit,
However as you well know most lads that were on roaming would and could sheet as well as a man who sheeted and roped several trailers a day .me personally carried 2, 8 panel and 2, 6 panel if possible as we would load glass bottles out of ROTHERAM or detergent powders from Ellesmere Port they took some mauling around.but we even took pride in folding them up so when needed to be opened up…you could tell a good man when folding, he would grab a corner string/cord and lean back and pull against you at the other end and the dance would begin,2 minutes a nice folded sheet like a good folded handkerchief one end folded and tight rolled,like a swiss roll, 3/4 way to the other ,then the other to it then stamped on just to flatten a little so then you would get over it, grab with both hands knees bent, and swing on the shoulder and plonk on the front of the empty trailer then rope down…ps splicing in the ringlets and back splicing the ends so no fraying was also what i did…because i could…
Dan Punchard:
0
Re the tipper sheeting atempt…
Ratchet strap Dan■■? Ratchet strap I would have done the front end differently, too much sheet there and I dont like the front corners either as they would soon be flapping about. Not easy to do without a load ‘hump’ I know. Apart from that, a first class job for a ‘flat bed’ driver!
Pete.
Dan not a bad job at all , however i would have secured the load first. then had the sheet go over the head board secured by rolling each end up then crossed the ends over left to right behind your cab,then pulled the front down,just like the rear of a trailer.
then a rope behind the head board pulling the sheet to the board on the loaded side
then take the sheet to the rear pulled tight over the load,make sure you are lower than the rave on the rail, tuck it under slightly, sort out the excess sheet later then cover the load is covered and water proof ,then get the rear corners of the sheet pull tight so as you can see no rail.then cross the corners left to right, secure ,then use the back flap hanging down, roll up until level with the rave, secure rope up job done…most sheeted loads always went over the head board…if you had boxes on the way it has been done water would run along the bed…
I very rarely sheet the side rail on a mini wheeler as it makes it look overloaded .
Thanks Dan, Windrush and DBP, you’ve reminded me why I bought a Tautliner as soon as I saw one!
John 
I had to unsheet & sheet up again a load similar to above on the ferry ramp in Ancona once as Italian customs hadn’t seen many sheeted loads coming from Greece ,lovely in the midday sun on the ferry ramp with lorries roaring past .
You WERE UN LUCKY however if you had a clearance and local delivery in ITALY then another clearance after you had delivered you first drop they would drill holes into the remainder of what ever was left for the other clearance and seal the corners up on all the boxes left for onward delivery the ITALIANS need no lessons of making a drivers life hard believe me …that is why on some firms the old hands always had the one drop …
1970commer:
Dan Punchard:
1I saw this motor too Dan, it was on the A6 as I came back from Carlisle, I took a picture of it too, I thought with a big load on like that it would be a bit sluggish up the hills but it was fair flying along, when it stopped I could see why, it had just come out of an engine conversion plant near Milnthorpe, it had an extra long bonnet on to accommodate the 8 cylinder engine it had just been fitted with,
We ran a skate board as well 
A P cab 112 about to pull out of the depot for the South loaded with 25 ton of reels which had been manufactured just down the road at Beetham Mill.
Bewick:
1970commer:
Dan Punchard:
1I saw this motor too Dan, it was on the A6 as I came back from Carlisle, I took a picture of it too, I thought with a big load on like that it would be a bit sluggish up the hills but it was fair flying along, when it stopped I could see why, it had just come out of an engine conversion plant near Milnthorpe, it had an extra long bonnet on to accommodate the 8 cylinder engine it had just been fitted with,
We ran a skate board as well
Nice one dennis ,is that in the original colours or did WRM put it in there’s at one time !