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How to get your printer off the truck!

Creighton

Creighton

New Member
Had our HP Latex Print & Cut 115 show up today, but it was unannounced so we had to send it away to try again another day. But there's a little challenge involved in delivery. Looks like HP double palletizes this thing - the printer's on a pallet, and the cutter is on a pallet, and they put both of those on another stringer pallet. Of course there's only one open side of the pallet and it is on the short side, but they don't fit into the 100" box truck width-wise, so this 700lb pallet of equipment gets pushed into the truck lengthwise by the forklift, with the closed side of the wooden pallet facing out. Now the driver can't rotate the pallet inside the truck to use his pallet jack, so it can't be moved to the drop gate or off the truck. So it looks like we have to disassemble inside the truck and 110 degree phoenix weather, unless I can find something to attach a come along to pull it to the dropgate. Is this SOP? Any suggestions?

Seems like they could have used a decent block pallet or plastic pallet with multiple openings. Fortunately, I have a handful of strong guys and lots of strong 13 year old boys to help. But what a pain!
 
Bradley Signs

Bradley Signs

Bradley Signs
I have done a couple different things over the years... one is to hook a strap or chain to the pallet, and pull it on to the lift gate. If that won't work, you could look for a place that has a outside lower loading dock, and see if they will let you use it to drag it on to the dock, then you can use the pallet jack to load it into a pickup, and then get it to the shop, and unpackage it, then move it inside by hand.... there must be enough room on the sides to get a rope or chain or cable around it.... From an old trucker/sign man.
 
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equippaint

Active Member
That's what we do too. Chain the pallet and pull it out as far as you can, then get the forklift on one end and the pallet jack under the other, drag it to the liftgate then lower the forklift and the liftgate at the same time. Without a liftgate, drag it out to the edge of the trailer, block up the end of the skid thats outside of the truck with another pallet or whatever you have so you can move the forklift, run the forklift around to the side of the skid and grab it.
Whenever we get long skids, they are always stuffed in the front.
 
Creighton

Creighton

New Member
Those are a bit of the strategy I'm settling on. Chain or strap tied to his drop gate, and then pull it out. No forklift here, so we'll probably have to figure out how to rotate it onto the drop gate. That shouldn't be as hard since it is only a few inches wider than the box, instead of several feet, and hopefully we can get it all onto the gate. Otherwise you're right, I'll be sending it somewhere else that has a forklift to have it dropped into a pickup first.
 
Creighton

Creighton

New Member
Now I'm finding myself tempted to throw an engine hoist in the back of the box truck, throw straps around it, hoist it, and wheel it onto the drop gate. Hmmm... Have to check some measurements.
 
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equippaint

Active Member
The truck driver still sitting there waiting for you to figure it out or did he get pissed off and abandon his trailer in your driveway?
 
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CL Visual

New Member
We had a Rolls Roller delivered and the pallet was 4' wide and 16' long. We had to get a Flatbed towtruck to come pull it off the truck and then he backed up in my shop and slowly put it down on our floor. I wish I recorded it. It was a very skilled operation. He charged me $75 to do it so it was a very small expense.
 
Creighton

Creighton

New Member
equippaint said:
The truck driver still sitting there waiting for you to figure it out or did he get pissed off and abandon his trailer in your driveway?
Click to expand...

Haha. I wish, I’d keep the trailer! Sent him away and told him to come back because he was supposed to call ahead. But I’m liking the flatbed idea. We have some connections and could get one cheap. Probably $45.
 
JTBoh

JTBoh

I sell signage and signage accessories.
That flatbed idea is pretty brilliant... will remember that one.

Also, this.
 
d fleming

d fleming

Premium Subscriber
I have used the wrecker method before. As stated, about 75 bucks and its done in a jiffy for you to start unpacking.
 
T

tulsagraphics

New Member
CL Visual said:
We had a Rolls Roller delivered and the pallet was 4' wide and 16' long. We had to get a Flatbed towtruck to come pull it off the truck and then he backed up in my shop and slowly put it down on our floor. I wish I recorded it. It was a very skilled operation. He charged me $75 to do it so it was a very small expense.
Click to expand...
Out of 3 rental companies, only one place had a forklift, and it had the short forks. This wasn't going to work at the short end of a 1,700 RollsRoller crate. So I had a local fabricator weld up a steel A-frame with scrap material (not pictured), same height as the truck bed. Used the forklift and straps to pull the machine out and placed the A frame under one end. Drove around and grabbed the machine from the long side, secured it to the mast, had the driver move the trailer forward, moved the A-frame out of the way and lowered the machine to the ground. Worked really well. ($150 for the steel A-frame was nothing compared to the cost of dropping the machine).
 

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