When it comes to cargo securement, there is DOT rules for all kinds of situations, say for different kind of motor vehicles, different loads and different routes. For commercial trucks the rules are pretty strict, since all the big rigs on the road are potential threat to public safety, especially surrounding motorist, therefor thorough understanding of the tie down rules is essential for any truck drivers and shippers.

The generic rules are pretty simple, and only two important aspects are being considered, the weight of the load and the length of the load. You will need at least one tie down for articles 5 feet or less,  weigh 1100lbs or less, at least two tie downs for articles 5 feet to 10 feet long, irrespective of the weight, tow tie downs if the articles are 10 feet long, and one tie downs for every extra 10 feet or less, say the article is 15 feet long then you will need at least 3 tie downs, 25 feet you will need 4 tie downs at least, and so on.

The generic rules are pretty simple, though there is no mention of working load limit of the tie downs, the rules involving WLL called aggregated working load limit rules, we will discuss about WLL rules in next post.

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Grade 70 Chains Deals

On April 18, 2010, in Cargo Securement, by admin

Grade 70 chain, aka binder chain, transport chain, which is used in transportation, coupled with chain tensioner, aka load binder, chain binder,  for tying down heavy equipment, machinery even weaponry, such as tanks, Humvee, backhoe, bulldozer, etc.

These chains have a series of sizes people can choose for their specific applications,  for light load there are 1/4” chains and binders, for heavier load there are 5/16” and 3/8” chains and binders, for real heavy stuff there are 1/2”, 5/8” and 3/4” chains and binders.

Grade 70 chain has design factor of 4:1, for example ,grade 70 1/4” chain minimum breaking strength is 12600lbs, it’s working load limit(aka safe load limit) is 1/4 of the MBS(minimum breaking strength), which is 3150lbs, see the following table for details:

cargo securement

Grade 70 Transport Chain Specification

Now we have a rough idea about what grade 70 chains are, what they are used for, now we want to know where to get them. Since these are steel products, so the weight is not like your regular merchandise, and when you need more than a few pieces of these chains the weight will be the dominant issue, so the first choice will be to shop at local store, of course you still need to move these bad boys when you arrive home, not to mention you have to drive around(most super market won’t offer you binder chains!), spend time and burn gas, pay the sales tax or some other premiums to acquire your heavy duty goods. If you don’t need them the next day, may be you can look around and try to snatch these chains online.

OK, this sounds counter-intuitive, since these bad boys are pretty heavy, the freight will be prohibitive, so online is not a ideal place to get these chains, or is it? Actually you can get pretty good deals online, even for these really heavy chains. These days you can buy almost anything online, a few minutes searching, typing and clicking, not hours screwing around. So the advantage of online shopping is so obvious, if we can find one or a few places offer reasonable shipping term, we can definitely buy these chains online.

Fortunately, you only need to search “binder chain free shipping” or “transport chain free shipping”, and go through a few sites, you will find the one which offers real free shipping for all heavy binder chains, it’s  up to you to try out the products offered on those websites which offer free shipping, or you can read online reviews for those websites to get an idea about their products.

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