Garden Railway Forum

Neat...

So, if I've understood the principle, the more the wagons joggle up and down, the more the heavier end of the lever will tighten the chain??? Clearly it will tighten when the heavy end drops down but will slacken when it bounces up. However, the timber lever will flex and its unsupported end is more inclined to drop than rise. It's a brilliant solution.

My mate is a handyman ( with a chemistry degree from Imperial) and fixes his ladders to his van's roof rack with rope. The rope is looped across the ladders at each end and the rack twice then the two loops are inter linked by a third loop which he tightens. He has calculated the mechanical advantage of applying force to the loops in this way. All very scientific. He's not lost a ladder (or the various loads of timber, pipe and flat sheet) he has strapped to his roof rack over the many years he's been doing the job.

I'm always impressed by the effectiveness of the truckers' hitch - which one day must master (I seem to recall some forumites are devotees of the truckers' hitch)

Rik

My dad used the truckers hitch whenever he had a load of wood on his lorries or if was lower than the sideboards of his wagon and longer than the body, he would just it to hold the wood or anything that was protruding out from the body. It was so simple had he had it down to a fine art. I timed he once and he tied the knot and secured the load in 47 seconds. Mind you he had been doing it since he was 12 years old...

This may help you Rik. Once you have done it, you will always use it I promise, because it is the best knot for securing anything that needs to be securely tied.

Trucker's Hitch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trucker%27s_hitch

Thanks Rod, easier than I thought.
Sorry about the thread drift, Graeme

Rik