Serious question, a guy at the Lebanon, TN scale house made me rethink my chain binders
I used to run nothing but ratchet binders on my mini excavator because that's what the old crew handed me back in 2019. Last week I pulled into the scale house off I-40 in Lebanon and the inspector walked around my trailer, then asked why I wasn't using lever binders on the low deck. He said levers get tight in about half the cranks and I wouldn't believe how many loads he sees with loose chains from guys over-cranking ratchets. I swapped to levers on the front two and ran a 45 minute haul to Murfreesboro and the chains never moved. What's everyone else running on machines under 10k lbs?
Man, I was all about ratchets for years and figured levers were just the old school way. That scale house guy might be onto something though, half the cranks does sound easier than cranking forever and hoping the chain's actually snug. For under 10k a lever gets plenty tight in my book.