Industrial Grade Truck Tie Down

The widely known fact is that the assembly of strap webbing and ratchet buckle usually called ratchet tie down but if we use cam buckle in place of ratchet buckle in the assembly we have cam buckle tie down, it's as simple as that. Due the low strength of the cam buckle, we usually see these cam buckle tie downs being used on pick up trucks, 1'' cams are all over the place while 2'' cams are being used in box trucks. Compare to cam buckle the ratchets are stronger and more widely used, the available sizes of ratchets are 1'',2'',3'' and 4'', and the ratchet buckle generally has higher working load limit than the cam buckle, they have working load limit of 3,333lbs, 5,400lbs and 5,400lbs respectively, these assemblies have design factor of 3:1, thus the minimum breaking strength is 10,000lbs, 16,200lbs and 16,200lbs respectively.

Of course what we discussed above is mainly for flatbed trucks and some other kind of vehicles, there are another kind of ratchet straps for semi trailers, ratchet e track tie downs , these tie down equipment will be used with E Tracks installed inside the semi trailer. It is estimated that 80% trucks are box trucks, and the e track tie down system is just for box trucks , so e track straps are most popular tie down straps. The e track straps usually have working load limit of 1000lbs, which is only 30% of the 2'' flatbed tie downs, and the breaking strength is only 3,000lbs based on design factor 3:1. the low working load limit of e track straps stems from box truck wall provides support for the loads inside the truck, come to think of it, the loads won't fall off the bed, not going to roll over, it's much safer than the cargo out there on the flatbeds, therefore low strength tie downs can be used to secure the loads.

In first paragraph we talked about design factor of ratchet tie downs, which is 3:1, so the working load limit is 1/3 of maximum breaking strength for ratchet straps, in the mean time the design factor of grade 70 tie down chains is 4:1, so the chains can support heavier load, and are more resistance to abuse, such as high/low temperature, moisture, while tie down straps usually only work well under normal condition. Nylon and polyester webbing are used in making tie down webbing, for different applications people will choose different material accordingly. Polyester webbing is almost perfect for tying down logs while nylon webbing is for small and light cargo. Elongation, tensile strength, abrasion and environment, these have to be taken into consideration when making tie down strap. When making tie down strap , manufacturer has to follow the recommendation of breaking strength and elongation requirements, when it comes to abrasion and environment, there are much more variations to be considered.

Rudy Young

Grade 70 Transport Chains and Chain Binders

Truck Chains and ratchet chain binders are tough truck tie downs, both chains and binders are made of carbon steel, their working load limits are higher than their straps counterparts , let's look at 5/16'' transport chain(WLL 4700lbs) vs. 2” tie downs(typical WLL 3333lbs) , 3/8'' WLL 6600lbs binder chain vs. 4'' WLL 5400lbs tie down straps , the grade 70 chains are stronger than ratchet tie down straps and the grade 70 load binders are stronger than grade 70 chains, 3/8''-1/2'' chain binder has WLL of 9200lbs, which is much stronger than 6600lbs of 3/8'' chains . Another reason chains and binders are considered heavy duty, is their design factor is 4:1 while webbing tie downs have 3:1 typical design factor, see “Design Factor” for reference .

According to NACM recommendations, the carbon steel used in making grade 70 chains should meet following criteria: no more than 0.35% Carbon, 0.040% Phosphorous and 0.050% Sulfur . When chain manufacturers make their chains to the specification of NACM, and these chains meet or exceed DOT(or CHP, or some other local requirements ) requirements, these chains can be used on the commercial truck to haul heavy loads, such as backhoe, forklift .

We use these heavy duty chains and binders to haul heavy equipment, for instance, backhoe, bulldozer, forklift, these big rigs are tough or straps, we have to use steel chains to tie them down , when we talk about backhoe, forklift, we need at least 3/8'' grade 70 chains and binders to secure them, for something which has less weight we consider 5/16'' chains are good fit, of course we still have 1/2'' and up chains and binders, these chains will most likely be used to tie down something out of ordinary, such as battle tanks, or some other applications require super heavy duty chains.

As we stated above, grade 70 chains , or say binder chains are used on a lot things except for overhead lifting. There are people who use these chains to tear trees, to tow mobile loading docks, a lot of forestry services use large quantity of these grade 70 chains and binders.

Rudy Young

Truck Tie Down Basics: Ratchet and Winch Straps

Ratchet Tie Down means quite some different things to different people, we will focus on big rig tie downs in this article, specifically, we are going to talk about flat bed truck this time.

People can and will put all kinds of different loads on their trucks , or they have no choice some times , they will need all kinds of different tie downs to get the job done.

Talking about flat bed trucks, quite some of the flat beds come with winches installed, or you can install by yourself at a later time, then you can use winch strap to do the job .

Weld on winch and truck winch straps are most popular tie down devices for flat beds . When you work with truck winches and winch straps, there is one thing you can't live without: winch bars, these steel bars are definitely needed for your job, so get one if you don't already have one.

Some trailers come with weld on winches installed, not all flat beds have winches installed . When the trailer have the winches installed, we can use winch straps to tie down articles on the trailer , usually we tie down steel coils, concrete pipes, skids, anything that not too heavy for the 5400lbs safe load limit . Winch straps usually come with flat hooks, since we usually hook the straps on the edge of the trailer , of course the wire hook can be used too. We can find 2” and 4” winches and 2” and 4” winch straps , depends on different situation , the strap length can be 20′, 25′, 27′, 30′, 35′, 40′ or more than 50 feet.

Of course we just can't leave out the most used tie down device, ratchet strap . Usually the ratchet straps are assemblies of ratchet buckles and nylon or polyester webbing tie down straps, there are fixed end straps with ratchet buckles and loose end straps.

Ratchet strap is most popular truck tie down equipment due to their flexibility , you can use them almost anywhere when it’s applicable. The ending comes with quite some varieties, flat hooks, double J hooks , chain extensions, snap hooks, endless and more. And it’s width can be 1” to 4”, length can be a few inches to more than 50 feet . On big rigs ratchet tie downs are the most popular tie down devices for haulers , those trailers without winches installed will look at ratchet straps seriously .

Before you go out or visit the web to get these tie down straps , you should learn how to get more out of it while spend less , first thing to consider is the quality , probably you know local store well enough, when talking about websites you need to find out by reading other people's the reviews, trucking blogs, such as trucker's deal , online feed backs, or by some other venues to decide if the products and service are good or not.

Rudy Young

Commercial Tie Downs in the Semi Trailer: E Tracks and Accessories

E Track tie down system usually has two parts, the E Tracks and the logistic straps or hardware connector, aka E Track straps or tie downs. The E Track will be installed inside the box trucks , the most used are 2 flavors , horizontal E Track and vertical E Track, popular sizes are 5' section and 10' section. E Track tie downs have some varieties, there are e track cargo bars with e fittings at both ends, ratchet e track straps, cam buckle e track straps, rope tie offs, wood beam socket, they all have e fittings at the ends, and on the floor we have chocks for stop vehicles from moving. Of course all of these need to have E Tracks installed and secured on the trailers, let's see how do we do that.

How to install E Tracks and install them safely? Here are some tips.

When you mount the E Track you will have to look for the wall studs on the trailer, we will focus on doing it on the wall but the same principle applies to the floor as well. The wall stud is basically a big channel with a couple of flat spots on top to attach the plywood to, we just have to do the same to the E Track and bridge two of them somehow, when you figure that out you can use screws to hold the E Track up, you will need deep threaded wood screws or tec screws to get the job done. Basically this is all about installing E Tracks on the wall, and you will have to make sure the E Track sit as flat as possible on the wood. For Safety reason, you'd better use deep threaded screws, put one screw into each hole on the e track, and run the track as possibly far as you can, the will spread the load across long distance and it's safer. Remember that the there are only about 2 inch to outside wall, so don't over assert the screws.

The last thing of the installation or say the first thing before getting the truck on the road is to test your e track installation, you can insert a 2''x12' ratchet e track strap into the e track, drag it, ratcheting it all the way, make sure every piece of e tracks installed are mounted safely , any weak spots have to be eliminated.

Rudy Young

What's the most popular tie down straps?

The assembly of ratchet buckle and nylon or polyester webbing is the ratchet tie down strap. The straps part of the assemblies can be made of nylon or polyester webbing , the safe load limit can range from a few hundred pounds to thousands of pounds , the width of the strap can be 1” to 4” , usually we can see hooks, loops or chain extension at both ends of the assembly .

The handle of the ratchet buckle have a few varieties, steel handle, aluminum handle or plastic coated handle. There are short handle ratchets, long handle ratchets, wide handle ratchets and long and wide handle ratchets, depends on their personal preferences and purpose, people will choose different ratchet handles for their tie down needs, it's the varieties make ratchet straps the king of tie downs.

The straps are made of nylon webbing or polyester webbing, nylon webbing is used in many applications where shock absorption properties are important because nylon webbing has better elongation than polyester webbing of the same construction and strength, such as motor cycle tie downs, polyester webbing is used where low elongation and low creep are desirable, such as flat bed tie down straps, we don’t want the load on the truck bed to move.

Coated with suitable material, we can alter the desirable characteristics , we can make more abrasion resistant, seal the straps to prevent corrosion, increase ultra-violet light resistance, increase or decrease coefficient of friction and more .

And the quality of the straps is the most important characteristic, to properly and safely use the ratchet straps is imperative. Now we need to find low price yet high quality straps. Usually your local dealer will have quite some varieties of straps, and the quality probably is OK but the price will be somewhat high. And don't forget the online store are the best place to find a lot of products, include tie down strap, but there is a problem, you can't touch the real products before they got delivered, it's almost unrealistic to have vendors to send you a sample when you only need a few straps, here we can go online to read product and service reviews of these online stores, usually you can read a blog, such as Running Tire, or specialized online opinion sites .

Rudy Young