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Tonight, I will be moving a small (6'6 x 3'2 approx.) slate-bedded billiard table (it's got folding legs), using a 5' x 3' trailer. For a load like this, which is rather heavy and brittle, are there any useful precautions against breakage I can take? I was going to rest it on 4x2s lengthways on the trailer, and strap it there.
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I'd have thought that renting a van big enough to take it might be a more cost-effective way of moving it... i.e. less likely to break it?!
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'Right said Fred, both of us together, one each end and steady as we go...'.
I suppose the fourbetwo will give it a bit more flex. Just watch the speed humps and potholes!
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It rather depends on how heavy it is, the construction of the trailer and what you have available.
My biggest concern would be what happens during an emergency stop.
I would build a cradle out of 4x2s that fitted just inside the 5x3 of the trailer. Screw 8' long 4x2s lengthways to the cradle. Then screw 6inch offcuts of 4x2 to the front of the lengthways timbers to act as stops. If I had a 6x3 sheet of ply lying around then I'd add that.
Depending on how fragile the table looked I'd seek out some old cushions or even an old single bed matress.
Then, under the cover of darkness and at a quiet time, I'd drive very carefully and avoid speed humps!
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Cushions definately above and below.
The main thing to remember FT, is to strap it long ways as well as cross ways so it doesn't move forward under braking ( or back after a fast take off! )
Ratchet straps will hold it fine but don't ratchet them too tightly as they will damage it.
Of course a bit of rope and a dolly would be better and make you into a lorry driver too:)
Pat
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The only cushions I've got are couch ones. I wonder whether they'd be useful. I have a sheet of shuttering ply, not very good, and a bit bowed/cupped. Hm. perhaps no use. I guess that the thing could be supported/strapped at the point where the legs pivot underneath. Would it be better to put some timber from side to side under the table, rather than from front to back?
The blinking road where I've got to pick it up is infested with speed bumps, but at least I know about them, unlike cracks, joins, deflections and potholes in the road surface.
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I wouldnt fancy towing this at speed. The chances of getting the weight distribution right is tricky. You are guaranteed a weave on at speed.
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Make sure you don't go in off.
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Why not? It's a billiard table! :-)
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I've got a pool table that somebody gave me, which is 7 x 3 slate bed. Mine came on a solid hardwood frame with solid turnrd legs so all in all very heavy. To move mine I took the top off the frame and it took 3 of us to lift it into a long wheelbase high roof Transit van, but we rested it on its side and tied it to framework in the van.
If you are using a trailer, I hope it has 4 wheels and I would drive slowly so as not to break the slate if you went into a crevass in the road like the ones we have round here.
Don't bust a gut !
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Make sure you keep toes and fingers clear, these things are very heavy and with a high point load on the edge. As a friend of ours found out when one fell edgewise onto her toes, it was chocked up in a storeroom and came adrift as she happened to be around. She lost several toes and was immobile for months, they all turned black and those that were left had metal spikes sticking out the end - ooh, 'orrible it was! MGs
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For what it's worth, I regularly delivered slate pool tables in the 1970s as part of my job delivering juke boxes, fruit machines and pool tables.
The slates were always removed from the tables and securely strapped to the side of our vans, travelling upright to avoid any damage.
Don't know how you can apply this to a trailer.
The nearest vehicle we had to a "trailer" was a Mini pickup and no slates would ever be let anywhere near the bed of that little monster!
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Take your cue from what others have said, and use your own car if possible, but if you have to use one from the pool then try to get an Alfa 147.
You don't have to move the thing in one go. Have a rest - the maximum break will do you good.
Hopefully, whilst on the journey you won't get balked by other traffic. That would be a foul stroke of luck.
As well as pot holes, beware of any awkward bridges.
Do your best, but if the worst should happen, just chalk it up to experience. But if it all works out then you'll be in the pink.
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How did you get on FT?!
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You'd think he's let us know, I sat there worrying about him last night!
Had visions of a rather out of puff, stately old gent, trying to push a billiard table on to the grass verge:)
Which reminds me...............I shouldn't have advised him at all. I remember when I lived alone and moved house. Two of my lorry driver colleagues came to help on a Saturday and I decided to have a new sofa and chairs. We piled the old one in the car trailer to take it down the tip, chairs tipped upside down on the sofa.
Now lorry drivers being what they are, we decided that it 'wouldn't move in a thousand years' ( GB & Harleyman will know the term).
I drove down the March bypass and looked in my rear view mirror in horror to see one chair on the white line and the other just leaving the trailer.
But even funnier was the site of my two colleagues running back towards the trailer with an armchair each in their arms while the traffic waited.
They saw the funny side of it too.
We don't see much of Plod around these parts:)
And I do know it was irresponsible of us, but sometimes in life you just have to laugh!
Pat
Edited by pda on 16/10/2009 at 11:12
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Well, that was rather fraught. It was loaded up upside-down on a few 4x2s with some rolled-up carpet on top, where the legs join on, and strapped down. The trailer has seen better days, and some of the sides disintegrated, so there's another job to do. I went the long way, to avoid bumpy roads, took it easy, and all was well. Table now installed. Great! On the way back the car was noticeably more responsive when overtaking.
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