How NOT to use a rachet strap. Beginner Mistakes that lead to problems & a New choice Vs Bungees

alright guys we got a jam-packed show because it's all about ratchet straps how to use them and some of the basic beginner mistakes the things that guys think they're doing right but really can lead to problems down the road we're gonna cover all the basic components of these showing some of the differences in the market from the major manufacturers of straps out there we're also gonna show you something that's brand new and that's a product called simple strap the first time I seen the simple strap I didn't really know what to think of it so instead I'm just gonna show you what it can do and let you form your own opinion we're gonna finish it with a half hitch so if you guys are taking your ladders off every day all day half hitch here you pull this it comes undone with a half hitch there do you want to do the half hitch I want to show these guys how easy it comes on sure so when you do the half hitch since I did a half hitch here when you pull it comes undone it doesn't scrape it doesn't scratch here's the half hitch down on this side so I left the half hitch like the tail here let's give it a tug comes undone simple reusable - yeah so you can use this all day all week all month over and over again and the reason we're bringing this into the mix of all these ratchet straps is because there's times when a guy you don't know if they really know how to use one of these things you may not be comfortable sending them out in the field using one of these things but this is pretty easy and it may be a good solution on some job sites so we're gonna look at everything so without wasting more time let's get into today's video all right so you guys are probably more than familiar with your basic ratchet strap and this thing it confuses and confounds a lot of people and great this is a great start so so the very first thing is we've got this one over looped on itself and you can see where I can't get anywhere with this strap right now simply because it's looped through the ratchet and then back again and so here you go right out of the gate we got one of the most basic beginner mistakes that I can think of our confined and so we're gonna start it all over again let's say you're having problems and you can't get your ratchet strap to work so this is your basic ratchet strap here's your hook on the end here's your tightening mechanism and here's your gearing to tighten everything up so a ratchet strap works pretty simply as you put you place the the nylon webbing or cord through the ratchet and you can tighten it down right I don't think I need to cover that in too much depth but how if you get it pulled apart like this how do you get it pulled put back together the right way well in my world there's a forward and then there's a backward okay this is the way I teach my guys the forward way is when you're facing it away from you you're tightening if tightening back toward you so the actual tightening action comes back toward you you notice I'm not going I can't go all the way over so the easiest way to get this set so you can reset it reboot it is to get it so that the center is dead stead horizontal and then we're just going to fish this right straight through the ratchet so let's go let's do this one more time yeah yeah Frankie Frankie just walked in so Frankie what's some of the typical beginner mistakes you see guys making with ratchets reps I'm covering the basics for these guys I do it before you put you first put your piece in through and then back out a lot some people don't I can't see I just said that's the wrong way to do it why do you do it through and then back up because I wonder where I can pull it oh yeah show me what you do and I want to show these guys what I do is this this was this actually was Frankie's ratchet strap we gotta get it over here a little bit I go through yup and then I go back out that way if I'm locked on to something here yeah I can just I can be in front of the ratchet deal here as I'm pulling my slack out of it all this one's got is that's about it first and then you can just pull this until you get it tight mm-hmm and then that's it I guess that's this all I've done it I got never I'm really doing it another way okay I can keep everything tight you know so I've seen that done but the reason I don't like doing it like this is because it limits how much you can tighten because now you've got double the cord in place and it's less forgiving so you've got to have it pretty tight before you start actually ratcheting it or you gotta release everything once you get everything tight release it pull your slack again yeah and then tie it wrapped it again oh yeah I know here's how I do it right one thing to keep in mind is that dirt and dust can affect the performance of a ratchet strap and I wanted to find out from the simple strap guys how their product would hold up under working conditions so the guys that invented it showed me so a lot of people ask me if it works dirty or dusty and the answer is yes [Music] so when I start all over with a fresh piece I feed it from the front I call this the front okay I feed it from the front pull it straight through the back and then I try to keep it super duper simple for these guys so here's one of the problems that you can experience when you're feeding it through if you feed it through and there's a curl in the line like this if you force that curl through like I'm doing right now you're gonna jam this up so now I forced the curl through and you can see where this is going to lead to problems so you got to start all over again right so once I get it basically through the ratchet we got it hooked onto something what do we got the by Sauveur there we'll hook it onto the vise okay so now I've got it there it's a simple matter of I like to hold the bottom hold the top I grab the release mechanism which is right here fold it over and go to town on it right so it's pretty self-explanatory and that's and then when you're done I always like to fold it all the way down so it's tightened this way then I got extra over here okay so the bad part about this this setup is this extra that's hanging out over the back is gonna put reverse pressure on your ratchet strap to loosen it up the way Frankie does it is the extra is actually toward the front room so his extra comes out just like that this way and then he can actually tighten it up and go wrap around it so that he's not getting any pressure to pull the ratchet back up no wider the performance of a ratchet strap will be affected by severe heat or cold just like any piece of equipment out there that you will use but my main concern with the simple strap is if you tie down your ladders or your piping or whatever and you're running down the road and it starts pouring rain on it is that simple strap going to loosen up and so the guys from simple strap said you know what let's go in the worst conditions we possibly can and so we decided to they decided to show me how it works underwater because it doesn't get much wetter than that all it is is friction and tension so here's what this is this is one of John's favorite it's not there's no friction right but even though this is wet with one wrap here on my hand holding it like this you can see I'm pulling tight that's just one wrap right there but because there's friction in tension doesn't going things to be aware of there's a time and a place when you ratchet is done as soon as you get a free like this your ratchet is done unfortunately your strap is once it creates a fray like this throw it out because it's no longer functioning it's no longer secure and that's what I'm using it I mean you can still use it you just can't use it for anything critical I think what do you use it to tie this my ladders okay just all right being really I'm sorry down to little more is there anything so let's look at a couple other options that we have this one is the quick loader I believe this one's called a quick loader the unit loader and the beautiful thing about this is it pulls automatically tensions back and this may not seem like a big deal but when you're a one-man operation you can hook this up or something and then that will stay secure and you can pull it and then it will automatically takes the slack out for you so it it does the set of the first step that we were talking about and then you just tighten it up okay and we've used these for years beautiful system great for one-man operations a bad part about this system is it's got a spring inside here and that bring get shot after six months to about a year of use and heavy use and heavy abuse you can plan on tossing these out but for the average person that's running this thing it's also got a release just like your your other set up so you can let the slack out and you're good to go so this is the unit loader by cutting clip loader my favorite strap on the market as far as ratchet straps go is the shock strap so this is the shock strap with the built-in shock absorber in it this shock absorber helps take keep the tension on this has been the best strap that I've discovered for actually keeping your loads as secure and tight when you leave and what as when you get there is when you leave these things are they work flawlessly heavy-duty here's one of the things that I've learned is a lot of times guys will have their loads come loose yeah right so they get to the they get to where they're going and like why is this why is a strap so loose it's in the webbing of the actual strap itself so this webbing tends to stretch and when you've got one of the other straps we have any one that your strap there Frankie the webbing on a cheap strap is made with cheap materials and this rebel French up to 40 percent and from this point you don't think so but once you put it under a lot of tension that's where you're getting that extra give is it's not in the ratchet it's not in the piece of equipment coming loose it's or anywhere else it's an in the actual webbing this company uses not just the shock absorbers to eliminate that stretch but also the webbing of the strap itself only stretches and flexes about 20% okay so I don't care how easy something is I don't care how convenient it is if it doesn't work then it's no good and having your load come loose is a main concern of mine so I challenge the guys that made the simple strap to prove that their strap could actually hold down a pretty big load so what we did is we took a giant canoe stuck it on top of a truck just use two simple straps to tie it down and went down the road at 50 miles an hour to see if this thing would fling off it was a little bit risky but if I can't recommend it if it can't hold up to that I can't recommend it to you guys so let's just see how this thing does so what you're seeing here is not heavy it's light which makes it worse it's kind of like going down the road with a giant kite attached to the top of your truck and we strap both of these canoes down in two different ways one we strap down underneath the canoe and the other one we strap down over the top of the canoe because well why not see if it affects performance and well it didn't they both weren't perfectly fine to be totally honest with you straps now this will not replace this will tighten down heavier equipment lawn mowers or things like that but fill of my ladders and ladders and everything else this thing is absolutely perfect so that's it for today guys that's our video let me know what you think of it in the comments down below tell me if anything you seen today helps you out and that's all we've got god bless go get them guys and we will catch you on the next one [Music] I was literally pushing against the ceiling trying to do them cuz I got down on my wing listen down manager boy yeah yeah