From fledgling inventor Donald Waters comes Timbertite, a new way for commercial truck drivers to secure dunnage to their vehicles. Dunnage is a term for spare pieces of scrap wood that is used to support loads, like cargo that is transported on a 18-wheel flatbed truck.
Typically, trucking companies and their drivers secure dunnage under the beds of trucks with either rope or elastic cord. But the knots often shake loose with the movement of the truck, especially over uneven roads.
“Cargo needs a means of securement and needs a means of proper securement,” said Waters, who is from Beech Island. “Until now there’s no way to store them. I literally just touched a cord and it came loose. I’m a thinker. That just got my little brain thinking.”
What encouraged him even more was an experience while he himself was driving a truck on a construction site.
“The dunnage that I had secured under my trailer became loose and slid to the passenger side, hitting a bridge support as I passed through a construction site,” he said. “It was enough to get me thinking even more. I didn’t want to improve a product. I wanted to create a product.”
The Timbertite features a 5,000-pound capacity polyester strap and a compression spring to maintain tension. All one has to do is secure the hook into the eyebolt on the spring assembly and tighten as desired.
Timbertite received its patent in 1999 but now Waters is looking for a licensee or a manufacturer. He will be attending INPEX — the Invention and New Product Exhibition — in Pittsburgh, Pa., on June 6-9 in hopes of doing just that.
Photo by Donald Waters.
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