Tag → winch straps

When You Have Reflective Tie Downs You Will Love Them

16 December, 00:22, by admin Tags: , , ,
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In the world of webbing tie downs for trailers , the ratchet strap and winch strap are playing a big role in cargo securement , cargo strap can be used inside the box trucks and on the flat beds , while winch straps usually are used with flat bed trucks with winches installed . And truck tie downs are much more than just ratchet straps and winch straps , for instance there are grade 70 chains , chain tensioners, logistic strap, and more .

There is a special kind of tie downs which have reflective strips on the webbing , in low light the reflective strips can be seen from far away , this looks like a safety feature, is it? When it comes to safety, even a tiny bit of improve on safety should be worth buying the reflective straps. Due the reflective tie downs are relatively new on the market, we don’t have much proof of safety benefits, All we need to know is that if you can see the reflection on the straps half mile away, it’s not likely we will hit the target due to bad sight.

Now compare the price of regular tie down to reflective tie down, get online you will find a lot of interesting information, a simple search tells us that the reflectives are a bit more expensive than regular ones, but not much, you will be able to buy a piece for around 10 something dollars, reflectives will increase the price by $1 to $2 , IMHO it should be more expensive, say you buy 10 straps the price difference is about $20, since these straps can be used for quite some time, the conservative estimation will be at lease 6 months, it’s only about $3 a month to have the added security of reflectives! Its definitely worthwhile to get the reflective tie downs!

The different style of winch bars and the combo of winch straps and truck winches

20 July, 12:23, by admin Tags: , , , ,
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So far truck winches and winch straps are only being used with flatbeds, I don’t know the exact percentage but a big portion of flatbeds sold with winches installed, this is a big plus for most drivers since they only need to get winch straps and winch bars(assume they don’t have them) to get started, and the plastic corner protectors maybe required or optional depends on what kind of loads on the truck. Truck winch comes in with a few different flavors and sizes, we have slide in winches, weld on winches and some other winches, usually the weld on winches are sold with the new flatbeds, and the sizes of the winches will be 2” or 4”, you will be able to use 2” or 4” winch straps with them respectively, of course you can put 3” winch straps in the 4” winches, but that’s not something you will see every day.

The way the truck winch and strap system works is pretty simple, the mandrel, the part into which you can insert the tie down strap, can be used to tighten the winch straps easily, thus tie the loads down pretty much by just put winch bar into the winch side hole then turn as many rounds as needed until the loads are secured properly. The barrel across the winch body has holes at one end, a  gear at the other end, the part between the winch body is mandrel, you can insert the webbing into it, close the brake on the gear will allow you the tighten the straps over the load, since the gear is only allowed to go one direction, when you untie the strap, open the brake, turn the barrel the opposite direction to pull the  strap off the load. To turn your winch barrel you will definitely need a winch bar, no one can do it with bare hands, besides, it’s required by law to use a winch bar with truck winches.

There are a few different kind of winch bars available, usually you will be able to find following winch bars at any store: standard winch bars, usually painted black, chrome standard winch bars, chrome combination winch bar and chrome combination winch bars painted half yellow. To be honest, all these winch bars are serving the exact same purpose, and it’s all about personal preference and sometimes people choose combination winch bars for specific reasons, one of them being that you can use something else with the combination winch bar, thus the word “combination” in the name.

Truck Tie Down Straps

27 April, 13:18, by admin Tags: , , , ,
one comment

Truck tie downs mean a lot different things to different people, we will focus on commercial truck tie downs in our discussion, specifically, we are going to talk about flat bed truck this time.

Since people put all kinds of stuff on the flat bed truck, just because they can or they have to, the needs for tie downs become complicated. We will look into different type of tie downs.

We will discuss truck tie down straps only.

Truck Winch and Winch Straps:

Some flat beds come with winches installed, not all flat beds have winches installed . When you have the winches installed, we can use winch straps to tie down loads on the flat bed, usually we tie down steel coils, concrete pipes, skids, anything that not too heavy for the 5400lbs working load limit. Winch straps usually come with flat hooks, because we usually hook the straps into the edge of the trailer, of course the wire hook(double J hook) can be used too. There are 2” and 4” truck winches and 2” and 4” winch straps, depends on applications, the strap length can be 20′, 25′, 27′, 30′, 35′, 40′ or more than 50′.

And there are ratchet straps:

Ratchet straps are most popular tie down straps because of their flexibility, you can use them almost anywhere when it’s applicable. The ending comes with quite some varieties, flat hooks, double J hooks(wire hooks), chain extensions(chain anchor), snap hooks, endless and more. And it’s width can be 1” to 4”, length can be a few feet to more than 50′. On commercial trucks ratchet tie downs are the best tie devices for truckers, those flat bed trucks without winches installed will look at ratchet straps seriously.

To acquire these tie down straps, you have the choice between local stores and online retailers, depends on different situation, get them locally sometimes more appropriate, sometimes online deals are much more attractive.