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Wheeled Hoppers Bins For Another Moving Topic

Would anyone have recommendations for buying wheeled or wheel-less bins/hoppers that can be filled and stacked compactly in a truck box or enclosed trailer?

I'd like the container weight to be fairly lightweight, under 50 lbs, but heavy duty enough to be stacked 4-5 containers high when loaded with relatively light items. Being durable implies fiberglas construction for industrial use, but f-g bins are fairly expensive.

I have very little confidence in the cheap poly bins with lids that are sold in nearly every retail store.. might be OK for filling with sweaters or pillows, but not much else, IMO. It seems that many commercial bin products have protruding rims/handle grabs that would prevent the bins from being stacked comactly, while increasing the likelyhood of load shifting/damage enroute.

We have 2, 24 ft owned, not rented, ex-rental trucks with ramps (not liftgates) and intend to get 2 enclosed trailers if needed.

I've been contemplating fabricating something similar with or without casters, open top bins with plywood sides/bottom, metal corner reinforcements and possibly an internal square ring formed from conduit to secure/reinforce the top edge and hold the sides together, while trying to keep the bins light weight.

Hell, if the plywood boxes are sturdy enough to be stacked turned sideways, at the destination, they would be easy to unload and locate stuff easily, and provide lots of usable storage.. possibly even benchtop supports, or at least fill the under-bench spaces.

One problem with plywood material for the bottom and sides, is limited thickness for screws to attach metal corner reinforcements etc.. so large pop-rivets and inside washers may be a better choice, but more labor intensive.

Maybe punching a starter hole with an awl, then filling it with CA or urethane glue prior to running in a short, coarse sheetmetal screw would hold well.. I'm guessing the dried glue would give the wood more density near the screws when it's absorbed locally to the hole, but maybe not*. If any screw points would protrude on the inside, they would need to be knocked off with a die grinder.

The (3/8"-1/2" whatever those new numbers are) plywood sides/walls should support stacking weight loads, easy enough to cut-in elongated holes for lifting, and probably withstand open highway travel fairly well, as long as they're all square and stacked straight. Some small blocks or other features in the bottom corners should be able to take care of properly aligning stacked columns (avoiding exposed thin-edged metal hardware that could potentially chop off or easily break a finger).

The other options could include multiple dollies for wheeling the wheel-less bins to-from the truck, so that 4-6 people could keep the flow of loading a somewhat continuous stream.

Much of my stuff, aside from machines that are crated, which will be the heavier "bottom" items in the load, will be electronic gear which is fairly lightweight, and some approximately 1/2 cubic yard bin capacity could still be stacked by 1 or 2 strong workers (not me).

The idea is to have many equal-sized bins that will be easier to arrange and stack than a multitude of differently sized boxes, while effectively utilizing most of the truck box space, which is difficult to do without shelves/racks when using lots of cardboard boxes.

*I tried the CA glue in drilled pilot holes for some wood screws to reattach a guitar bridge recently, only because it seemed like a good idea to me.. I dripped the CA into the pilot holes, and probed the holes with a toothpick to distribute the glue, then let it sit for about an hour before carefully turning the screws by hand. The screws felt like they were turning into real wood, not the fluffy crap the cheap guitar body was made of.
Reply to
Wild_Bill
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Your local rock and roll sound emporium. You want trunk cases.

They are generally put together with aluminum extrusion at the edges, such as that available here:

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Kevin Gallimore

Reply to
axolotl

Nice stuff. But could get expensive: a 18" x 24" box 12" deep would take 11' to do the sides & bottom - about $30 worth. Bob

Reply to
Bob Engelhardt

Thanks Kevin, my interest is a utility-grade open top bin-type container that is easily stacked, with a simple feature on the bottom to position the bins squarely as they're stacked.

The aluminum hardware is nice stuff for fancier cases, guitar amp or speaker cabinets, etc.. but being aluminum, is gonna be very costly for enough bins to fill 24 ft box trucks. I'll be looking for cheaper galv/zinc-plated steel hardware in volume quantities when I'm able to determine the final fabrication details.

Those trunk/road/flight cases are nice, and their prices reflect that they're likely to be durable, and also attractive.

I may have clouded the request by mentioning electronic gear, but I didn't mean I was looking for protective cases to put electronic gear into, but instead meant that other than heavy shop equipment (in crates), much of my stuff is relatively lightweight electronic gear that's already in cardboard boxes. So.. moving a bin full of 12-20 cardboard boxes is more efficient/effective than carrying the boxes to the truck in 2-3 trips.

Reply to
Wild_Bill

Drywall corner bead is tough to beat if cheap is important. About $2 per 10ft length. It's also available unpunched.

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Reply to
Ned Simmons

Thanks, Ned. I'll have a look at that stuff.. it's definitely cheap enough to double layer if it's kinda flimsy. Since the box corners will lap (for a glued joint), the sides may not be long enough to span across the joint without causing the screws to be at the edge of one of the side panels.

The drywall outside corner beads do sometimes have that neat little bead at the bend, but I haven't seen any that appeared to have any structural strength, even less than roof flashing.. although I realize strength isn't what it's intended to provide.

I've looked locally for cornering strips before for crate edges, but all I found was a universal steel utility angle with an excessive number of holes/ft, and a bend radius of about 1/2".. the type of stuff that's used for diagonal braces and hangers for garage door tracks. The gage is too heavy to cut with snips and thin enough to cause problems with teeth stripping on a bandsaw unless cutting multiple pieces or backing-up with wood, and then trying to miss all the holes. Additionally, for crate corner edges, the corners would need to be chamfered to accomodate the bend radius.. too much to plane off quickly, and too dusty to rip off with a grinder (nope, don't have a router table with a vac).

Reply to
Wild_Bill

Try adding "crates" to your search terms? For reusable/durable stuff, I see a lot of office movers and retail stockers using something like these:

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they are often stacked on a plain 4-wheel moving dolly rather than one of their special dedicated ones. Best part is that they nest when stacked open and stack neatly when shut, and you're not tripping over loose lids all the time.

Apparently there are places that rent them as well as sell them. For myself, I'd rather buy since it takes me decades to unpack... --Glenn Lyford

Reply to
Glenn Lyford

We have bunches of the Rubbermaid branded Rough Totes/ Roughnecks. I've seen them packed on the floor of a 53' moving van with stuff on top all the way to the ceiling... way higher than a 24' box truck. The key is in packing any container tightly, so the load isn't carried completely by the walls of the container, same as cardboard boxes; stacked floor to ceiling, and as long as they're packed tightly, it's the contents supporting the load rather than the container walls alone. I've had Roughnecks weighing over 250 lbs.

The standard for lots of weight is the "dish pack," a tri-wall corrugated cardboard box generally sized at

4.5 or 5.2 cubic ft. depending on who makes them. They'll easily hold hundreds of pounds, and they are designed to be dollied. They have handholds cut into the sides for easy moving. These have been used for safely moving fragiles for decades.

You've said _what_ your idea is, but you haven't said why the tried and true moving methods aren't suitable. It seems to me that info would elicit more useful feedback.

Movers use standardized box sizes. The 3.0 has a square footprint the same dimension as the long side of the 1.5. The 4.5 has the same footprint as the

3.0. They are extemely easy to arrange and pack tightly.

You can reinvent the wheel, and do a "better" job of it, but you're not going to find a cheaper, lighter weight, tighter way of packing than what the industry already does.

Reply to
Steve Ackman

Some of the crate rental products look like they might be useful, but then that dictates that they be promptly emptied and returned to avoid extra charges.

Some of the online examples I've seen are only about (28 or) 24x16x12" which is limited in capacity.. I think these products are a bit too limited to be very practical, except for some specific materials. I didn't see any mention of additional charges if these rented items break, so I'll assume that there are possibly more charges contained in the details of the fine print/agreement.

The larger gondolas would handle a lot of bulk items, but might not be easily stacked when loaded. Some sheeting OSB could probably be used to cover a bottom course, then other stuff packed on top.

There are some carton distributors locally, but those double and triple wall boxes are costly in large sizes.. with not much practical future use at the destination.

These box trucks have an overall height of under 13', but the box ceiling height is about the same as a semi trailer's. The height from ground to box roof is a little lower than a semi because the box sits a little lower to the ground (wheelhouse humps in box floor).

Much of the stuff that's in storage is already boxed (bought about a pallet load of cartons previously), I'm just trying to think of an effective/quick way for some helpers (not experienced movers/truck packers) to be able to get the multitude of packed boxes from a building to the truck, and filling the truck box efficiently without any avalanche events.

The previous move of about 2 miles took numerous truck trips because the truck box wasn't filled to anywhere near the top.. not as much of an issue then, but the mileage this time will be across the country.

Reply to
Wild_Bill

Yep, the crate results show sme more practical sizes, Glenn. The $100+ cost for the ~6 cu.ft. model has me considering the plywood and hardware option a little more seriously.

Reply to
Wild_Bill

Galvanized collapsible stacking wire baskets.....

over 500 pcs. available at location 2 and 3

Stroudsburg, Pa and Cadiz OH.

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If you need 4 million bucks worth of pallet racking they got that too.

Reply to
Randy333

Thanks for that, I'd be interested in some of that type of baskets that were smaller.. I'll look into what other sizes are available from other sources.

Wow.. what a massive amount of machinery.. I'm in western PA, so those sites aren't too far off, but the majority of the auction items are huge.

Reply to
Wild_Bill

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I could sure use one or two of those bridge cranes.

John

Reply to
John

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