When people talk about truck tie downs , they probably are talking about totally different things depends on the context, for instance, ratchet straps for truck are definitely 2 inches and ten thousand lbs tie down while ratchets for pick up will be 1” and 500 lbs tie down, we’re only going to discuss about truck tie downs here, to keep it simple and stupid, I’m sure you’ve already seen flatbed tie downs on the road, we will only talk about flatbeds for the time being.
When the jobs come your way, odds are you won’t be able to decide what kind of cargo will be put on your truck, the only thing you can do is to prepare for all the opportunities , 9 of 10 times you will have to accept whatever they want you to transport . We will talk about truck tie down straps solely , since the are popular tie down devices on flatbeds, and it should be the most popular tie downs on all trucks as well. .
For most flat bed trucks, truck winch and winch straps are what we usually use to tie down stuff, some trailers come with winches installed you only have to get 4×27 winch straps . There is one thing indispensable for truck winch and winch strap tie down combination, winch bar, which is the tool to help you control the cargo on the flatbed, since you can only tighten the winch straps through turning winch barrel, this only can be done by the help of winch bars.
Some trailers come with winches installed, not all trailers have winches installed. When the trailer have the winches installed, we can use winch tie down straps to tie down articles on the trailer , usually we tie down steel coils, concrete pipes, skids, anything that not too heavy for the the straps’ safe load limit . Winch straps usually come with flat hooks, because we usually hook the straps on the edge of the flat bed , of course the double J hook can be used too. Truck winches come in with two different flavors, 2” wide and 4” wide , but winch straps have width of 2”, 3” and 4”, it’s obvious you can put 3” winch straps in 4” winches, when we look at the length of the winch strap, the range is pretty wide for regular use, from around 20 feet to more than 60 feet, 27′ and 30′ being the most common length available.
And we just can’t leave out the most used tie down straps for transportation businesses, ratcheting strap . What we call ratchet straps are actually assemblies, the ratchet buckles with short straps, one foot or longer, and the long straps, 6 feet or longer.
Ratchet tie downs are most used tie down devices because of their capability , you can put them almost anywhere when it’s applicable. With flat hooks, wire hooks, cloth loops, chain anchors, even endless, ratchets just can’t have enough variety, how can we don’t love these ratchets? Width of the ratchets measured from 1” to 4” and the length can be anything from inches to more than 50 feet, the ratcheting mechanism really has it’s advantage. On commercial trucks ratchet tie downs are the most used tie down devices for truckers , those flat bed trucks without winches installed will look at ratchet straps seriously.
Before you go out or visit the web to purchase these truck straps , you should learn how to get more out of it while pay less , most important thing is the strap quality , most likely you will know the quality of local store stuff, but for websites you should evaluate them by reading other people’s the reviews, trucking blogs, such as trucker blogs , customer feed backs, or by some other venues in order to determine whether their offerings are worth the price tag.