Friday, December 14, 2012

Logistics Considerations

I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but a while back we unearthed some old nylon tie-down straps that used to be used to try to keep rolls of leather in concrete form tubes under control, prior
to building the carts that now do a much better job. Some of the straps had good ratcheting tie-downs, and some had crummy cam locks. Meanwhile, the adjustable-length bungee straps we got to use in the trailer were proving to be less than stellar performers. Ron was also looking for a way to keep tables and gridwall from sliding off of Thing 1 when moving in and out of buildings for setup and teardown.

To that end, I found that I could buy just the ratchet mechanism from the supplier where I was ordering more e-track to put in the trailer, and got some. Friday night Ron replaced the cam locks on the old straps with the good ratchets, and we tried them out at Boar's Head.

Not a fail, but not a resounding success, either. The bit of strap connecting the ratchet and a hook turns out to be too short to use easily for tying things to Thing 1 and Thing 2. And the straps are
waaaayyyy long for use it tying up the gridwall. Some of the straps are also lighter weight/thinner than others, and had an annoying tendency to fold in the ratchet.

I looked at suppliers Sunday morning, and the plan is to buy a 50-yard roll of nylon strap that should be on the thicker and stiffer side, and maybe a couple more ratchets. Once we get them we'll re-build with the better strapping, making long tie-down sets for tying things to the Things, and shorter sets for tying the gridwall, chairs, and other stuff in place in the trailer.

In our copious spare time.

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