Flatbed Variety

Bobcat Bob,

Back when I hauled boats, I considered their shrink-wrap to be part of their securement not mine. Same thing with the Tyvek wrapping around the lumber. I learned that in most circumstances they wanted us to tarp the Tyvek wrapped Lumber to preserve the Tyvek bag. But if we weren't required to tarp it and the Tyvek bag ripped apart, not my problem.

I would not try to tarp one of the boats, because they are very particular about the boats. When I delivered the boats, they would usually take 45 minutes to an hour to inspect it for all the parts that were inside the boat plus any scratches. Any little scratch they would note.

That is kind of what I figured. Someone buys a 100k plus boat they want to the the ones to scratch it 😀

Here's a load of "scrap aluminum" I picked up at Canpack in Olyphant, PA. This is completely made up of very small, sort of four pointed star shaped pieces. Coiled aluminum sheets are run through presses that punch out the round lids for aluminum cans. These four pointed stars are the waste material from the center where four round tops meet at their closest points.

They bale the waste up and sell it back to the coil suppliers or anyone else who will pay the best price. It has a burnt smell to it from the baling process. They heat it up with an electrical charge as they press it together. That causes the little pieces to stick together. It is sort of like the process of "spot welding."

The load was delivered to Constellium in Muscle Shoals, AL.

Old School, that is really interesting. When I was in construction, we always stored our scrap aluminum and copper until we had a pickup truck load to take in to the scrap dealer. Depending on current prices it could amount to a nice bonus.

I picked these 48 foot laminated wood beams up in Thurmont, MD. They delivered to Villa Rica, GA.

They were manufactured in Finland!

The forklift operator had his hands full while unloading me.

Wow, that's quite the balancing act!

I picked these 48 foot laminated wood beams up in Thurmont, MD. They delivered to Villa Rica, GA.

They were manufactured in Finland!

The forklift operator had his hands full while unloading me.

I've set countless ones of those. They flex laterally quite a bit. That's crazy to see a forklift with one. We always rigged with both ends, either from a skylift or a crane. I don't miss it.

Resurrecting this thread with an interesting load I hauled today.

Doesn’t look like much from the view here but this was a half million dollar printer. I thought it was a 3d printer at first but the receiver told me it’s for printing big banners and vehicle wraps and stuff like that.

It was pretty fun to tarp. The shipper normally loads these in a conestoga but this one was too big and didn’t fit so they called for a normal flatbed with tarps. The top and sides are just panel board and way too thin to walk on and the shipper didn’t have anything to help tarp with so we ended up using two forklifts to lift the tarps up and drape them over the load. The best part was that the shipping manager didn’t want to do it that way and wanted to put a 2x4 across the top of the box for me to walk on so I wouldn’t fall through while I tarped… 🤨 (for some context the total height of this load on the flatbed was just under 13’6”). We didn’t do it his way lol.

Loading and unloading this was also really interesting. They had me back into a dock to load it and they pushed it on with a forklift (the box is on a sled). Then when it came time to get it off they had me back into the building and they used a special remote controlled forklift with an extendable base to offload. The whole thing was 20,000 lbs, 28.5 feet long, 8.5 ft tall and like 6 or 7 feet wide (didn’t measure the width). The receiver didn’t have the equipment to offload it so a separate rigging company came and offloaded it.

At shipper:

At the receiver:

Really tight inside the building:

It also involved a blindside back off the street into the building lmao. All in all it was a fun one