newmercman:
I put my old man in hospital stripping out a tilt
I was loading in a little town up in the hills in Italy, Levico to be precise. It was a load of machinery through the roof, fortunately it was a straight frame, not a step frame, so with two of us it was fairly easy getting the sheet up to the front.
The difficult bit was getting the rear cant rail out, it dropped into sockets on the uprights, but someone had wedged a too big tilt board into the sockets below it, causing the uprights to lock the rail into place, I tried beating it, but it wouldn’t budge, the board wouldn’t come out as the rail was too close to push it up, so my next plan was to push the board in the middle and spring it out.
My Dad was stood at the back if the trailer watching me, so I told him to GTFO of the way, so he went over to the side of the factory (we were inside) and I let it have it, the board sprung out and flew across the factory hitting the old man right on top of his canister! There was blood everywhere and we ended up at a hospital where he had a few stitches.
The stitches came after a liberal dosing of alcohol and a razor, which didn’t please the old man one bit.
He was not much happier on the drive home either, moaning about his headache and that he couldn’t sleep, so being the kind hearted soul I am, I jumped in the bunk and said if you can’t sleep, you might as well drive, wake me up when we get to Calais
Lol, I take it you dont get much for christmass after that episode?
I saw a Tilt trailer this week and I thought “Blimey, it’s a tilt!” and then I thought “You hardly ever see them nowadays, but for over 10 years they were all I ever pulled”.
Does anyone here still use them or has everyone gone the way of Euroliners?
I don’t harbour happy memories of them, my memories are of sweating my nuts off in some factory in Milan in 40 degree heat, balancing 13 feet up on the roof bars dragging the sheet back, wishing someone would invent Health & Safety
i only ever had the privalage of a tilt once and once was enough, had too strip and put back together twice as the load of steel i was delivering wasnt allowed to get wet (yes where did they put it when it was offloaded, yep outside in the ■■■■■■■ rain) i reloaded it with seed potatoes for spain (all handball) but they are a very rare sight on the roads nowadays
Last time i done a full strip out was about 20 years ago(funnily enough in Italy)
and a bundle of steel approx 7ft x 3ft was loaded onto the trailer . . . Happy days !!
Nearly lost an eye once . . careless i know Was trying to flip the back flap onto the roof with one of the side runners, prior to reversing onto a loading bay.
Anyway the ■■■■■■ snapped and caught me square in the face .
Mind you , it was a Mat trailer . . .Ho hum.
Better than roping + sheeting
I too have bad memories of tilts, why do we all remember stripping the bloody things in sweltering heat, my worst was a vinyard in France in summer - god did I sweat, I had a Volvo FL10 with no aircon either, I seem to remember crying myself to sleep that night - poxy tilts.
Had a tilt on about six months ago. Had to strip it twice in a day as I had to load in two different places. Was loading machinery for Macon out of Plymouth and it wasn’t boiling hot it was ■■■■■■■ down with rain and windy. Never again. Just glad i didn’t have to unload it at the other end.
being a young whipper snapper I aint got a clue what your on about, I tried a google search but just got the car trailer type, anyone got a photo they can post.
When working round the Immingham area on agency’s, when I was sent somewhere the first thing I used to say was “its not a tilt is it?” the second was “is it a strip out?” if the answer was yes the third thing was “No”.
I was sent out one night to Birmingham with the Gold plated assurance that it would unload out the back doors, when I got to the destination there was a crane waiting, strange I thought, a crane a 22.00 at night waiting for me!!!. inside the Godforsaken devil’s invention was a sodding great printing thingy, I asked the Brummie in charge get a couple of your lads to help me strip this down,NO was the answer, “it’s your job we are not insured”.
I got in the cab turned round and took it back to where I got it.
Used to have one on multi drops, TM had a wicked sense of humour
How many times did you get hit on the head with a roof pole or timber doing a strip out
Harry Monk:
I saw a Tilt trailer this week and I thought “Blimey, it’s a tilt!” and then I thought “You hardly ever see them nowadays, but for over 10 years they were all I ever pulled”.
Does anyone here still use them or has everyone gone the way of Euroliners?
I don’t harbour happy memories of them, my memories are of sweating my nuts off in some factory in Milan in 40 degree heat, balancing 13 feet up on the roof bars dragging the sheet back, wishing someone would invent Health & Safety
It makes me sweat thinking about them I once loaded a tilt with stainless steel coils ( a strip out) in Sheffield,took it to brescia, strip it out to tip, rebuilt it then I ring up to find out where me reload was, full load of marble slabs from Verona on "A"frames, another strip out.
I still get some on DSV but thank god now no strip out`s
I can remember years ago coming out of the steel works at Scunny (after hours loading) saw some poor sod pulled the cord out both sides of the trailer but he had the truck the wrong way, windy and yep the cover went straight over his cab
Tilt is an old Anglo Saxon word for canvas, It got applied to anything with a canvas top (plastic in later years), covered wagons, boats, army trucks, land rovers and continental trailers .
Harry Monk:
I saw a Tilt trailer this week and I thought “Blimey, it’s a tilt!” and then I thought “You hardly ever see them nowadays, but for over 10 years they were all I ever pulled”.
Does anyone here still use them or has everyone gone the way of Euroliners?
I don’t harbour happy memories of them, my memories are of sweating my nuts off in some factory in Milan in 40 degree heat, balancing 13 feet up on the roof bars dragging the sheet back, wishing someone would invent Health & Safety
It makes me sweat thinking about them I once loaded a tilt with stainless steel coils ( a strip out) in Sheffield,took it to brescia, strip it out to tip, rebuilt it then I ring up to find out where me reload was, full load of marble slabs from Verona on "A"frames, another strip out.
If anyone can remember the DOW trailers with the barn doors, the top rear beam was a 4’’ square box section with hooks which slotted into the corner post. Well when one of those hit you on the head it made me use language to embarrass a nun.
One trick I was taught by a Dutchman was to make a spiders web inside with ratchet straps over the top of the side doors. Then you could lay a few tilt boards on the straps to walk on to refit roof poles or boards. until someone invented bloody gates
We have still got one of the damned things but with curtain sides so at least you dont have to keep unzipping the sides to load/unload - but loading through the roof is a nightmare. Until last year we still had a proper tilt - I used to dread getting it.
Apart from a full strip out, the worst thing was side loading in strong winds and having to rope the roof and sides down to make sure it didnt take off.
