Beautiful shot of the top of the dolly
And another beautiful shot of the bottom. Very strong design.
A view of the center anchor from the bottom
A view of the center anchor from the top along with the hand hole.
Psalm 104:3 molded into the base
3+2 Caster Configuration - These are the 3 swivel casters with brakes
3+2 Caster Configuration. These are the 2 rigid casters that provide directional stability.
For those of you who want to get in early on this project, we will begin pre-orders as soon as a container load is ordered which should be within the next week. We returned from the factory with hand carried units from the first batches out of the mold, and we are very happy with the results. We have some tests to carry out this week and are likely to make 3 or 4 minor modifications to the mold, but after that it is full speed ahead!
We are testing the screws that hold the casters on, and we will test to see just how much abuse these things can take. We might not be able to break them because the are very strong. I might need to get help from my grandsons because they can break almost anything!
Backside of the molded base. These units are being paired up to hand carry out of the country
The central core of the tool, machined and ready to go. Tooling is on schedule to be completed by the middle of this month. "First shots" to follow, then we will have the "real thing" in our hands and can begin final tests.
Here we go! At long last it appears that the production of the tooling required to mold the TruStack Tire Dolly base is proceeding smoothly. There have been several hiccups (normal) along the way as the CAD files were refined and re-refined to ensure that the finished product will be strong and correct. Here are a couple of pictures of the machining involved in creating this tool
Another drawing by Artist Reese Banke, this one illustrating how stable a TruStack Tire Display is when the tires are locked down to the dolly.
Thank you to Artist Reese Banke for his ideas on how to convey the disadvantages of a standard Tire Clamp Dolly as compared to a TruStack Tire Dolly! Yikes!
Dolly Face!
The design for the Dolly Face is nearly complete. You would think this would be easy, but there are several components to the process that are fairly important.
Of course it needs to look cool, but it also needs to instruct the operator of the dolly intuitively. To do that, the face incorporates three concentric circles, two solid, one dashed. in addition, the two solid circles are thick, so they can represent an additional two diameters. these act as a visual reference point for the individual who is attempting to center that first tire onto the dolly. As every tire professional knows, if the first one isn't straight, the rest of them can only get worse!
In addition, the dolly face includes a very large arrow, intended to point in the direction of travel. The reason this is important is that the caster design allows for very precise steering or guidance using 2 rigid parallel casters, plus 3 swivel casters. Inferior dollies use only 4 casters instead of 5, they all swivel, making momentum difficult to control, or they have 2 rigid, 2 swivel, which also makes the load difficult to control. Since this dolly is round, we incorporated that large arrow to point you in the right direction.
Last, we wanted to include the website, safety info, and of course, the logo. One more step complete as we near the end of the beginning.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Tire Clamp-Carts... so fast and easy to move large quantities of barrel-stacked tires. But every time you need to be gentle, it’s impossible.
It’s especially irritating to move displays on a daily basis. Maybe not so bad at night when you are closing the store and moving displays in, because who cares how straight that barrel stack looks while hanging out overnight in the dark? It’s in the morning while setting them out that a clamp cart does it’s damage, because you simply cannot tilt a tire stack back 45 degrees and then set it back upright without the stack shifting or bouncing out of position when it is finally placed.
Now if you and your crew are professional, and who among us doesn’t desire that, you will obviously want to take the extra time needed to straighten the stack up. You will spend time lining up the tire labels, repositioning your pricing information, and setting that top tire up in a way that is uniform and consistent with the way your other displays are set up.
And of course, you must do all this at a time when you are also making coffee for customers, preparing reports and plans for the day, waiting for a full crew to arrive, and dealing with early-bird customers.
Wouldn't it be better to set those barrel-stack displays permanently on a TruStack Tire Dolly? Build the display once. Build it straight, line up the labels, add marketing signs, set the top tire vertical and at just the right angle, and cinch it all to the dolly using the built in anchor system. Now you and your crew can simply roll the display out every morning, and roll it back in every night, and it will keep that professional look right up to the minute you sell them.
Yes I finally did it. You can follow Chariot Concepts and TruStack Tire Dolly on Twitter @Chariot4Tires. We'll try to be interesting. Really.
Every tire employee is familiar with a tire clamp cart. I remember when I first started in the business, all clamp carts were oak-framed with metal reinforcement and clamp apparatus. Yeah, I know… I’m an old-timer. What a great invention, though! Grab a stack of tires with the cart and move it where you want it.
But I can’t count how many times I went to a storage rack to gather a set of tires for installation and rejected the idea of using a clamp cart, and for multiple reasons.
Often it was too far away to bother with, this because it is bulky and is stored out of the way, or again because it is bulky, it was a pain to maneuver down aisles and around corners. Or because they are expensive, it was a shared tool, and therefore, rarely where you expected to find it. Using it… first involved finding it.
Then there is the amount of space needed to maneuver it. It doesn’t require a large footprint while standing at rest, but to operate it, one must tilt it back. Now it requires much more room, due to the extra length while keeping it balanced, tilted backwards on two wheels, especially challenging while turning sharp corners. How often have I hit the wall or doorway or even other employees with the front of the load while steering a bit blind from behind the load?
Here is where the TruStack tire dolly comes in. It may never replace the clamp cart, but it will go a long way to complimenting it. It's light, inexpensive, simple to use. Keep a dozen on hand. They nest well enough to store 12 in a 5' section of tire rack.
Carry it to the rack, roll it back. Simple, easy, safe, and efficient.
Just returned from the SEMA Summit in Las Vegas. Three days of soaking up knowledge to prepare for the SEMA Show in November. If you are attending the SEMA Show, look for the TruStack Tire Dolly in the New Products Showcase, and then visit us in booth #38221 in the South Hall, upper level.
I can't wait to show this product off at SEMA this year. It has been quite a surprise to me that over my 36 year career in the tire business, tools can still be invented that revolutionize the way we run our day to day business. Tire professionals are always trying to find a quicker or cheaper or safer way to accomplish tasks, and this product hits all three of those targets.
Look for us at the SEMA show in November in the World Tire Expo and also in the New Products Showcase.
This is going to be fun!
We had a great Memorial Day BBQ with the family and grandkids. At one point, somebody exclaimed, "Look at Wyatt!" Wyatt is my very active 3 year old grandson who often says things like "Watch me jump Grandpa... I won't break my head open!" Anyway, while unwatched for a moment, I swear, that's all it takes with this little guy, Wyatt had climbed up the side of a tire stack display that was in place to validate the safety claims of this product. Well, Wyatt validated the claims by crawling up the stack unseen, climbing into the tire displayed vertically on top, the securing strap performing as designed. The TruStack tire dolly is wonderful for quick retrieval of sold tire sets from storeroom to shop, or displays that can be set up and left alone, but the security strap does more than just tie down the load, it protects little customers from being injured by unstable displays. And of course, that protects the retailer from an extra layer of liability exposure.
Clamping tire carts are sure handy to use when you have dozens of stacks to move quickly and you don't care if they end up crooked, but what if you just need to queue up a set of tires to be installed? Clamp carts are so bulky that it is often easier to just grab a pair of tires with your hands and make two trips, manually stacking them in the work area. But I've often discovered that they get stacked next to the wrong machine or the wrong bay, or worse, the customer postpones until later in the day. Now you have to move that stack again, either by retrieving the tire cart or by manually picking the tires up and rolling them out of the way. But they are never really out of the way are they?
The TruStack Tire Dolly is light and was designed with an easy to grab hand hole. Just grab the dolly, go to the rack, stack the sold product on the dolly and enjoy the easy-steer return trip to the work area. Did you stop at the wrong bay? No sweat. Roll it over to the right one. Postponed sale? No sweat. Roll them out of the way!
Save time and labor by keeping a few TruStack Tire Dollys on hand for the service techs to use to efficiently fetch and manage product queued up for installation.
The TruStack Tire Dolly uses 5 casters. Most platform dollys or tool carts use 4. If you have had the opportunity to use a shopping cart at IKEA, you will know right away how difficult it is to control a shopping cart with 4 swiveling casters. Furniture dollys are much the same. That design requires constant attention to the direction of momentum and requires a strong commitment of energy to redirect the cart, and the more weight, the more difficult the job. Regular shopping carts and some tool carts use 2 fixed wheels and 2 swivel casters. This is easier in some ways because the rigid wheels add directional stability, but it then becomes a bigger challenge to steer. On a grocery cart, you may have noticed that the more weight placed over the steering wheels, the more difficult it is to change the direction of travel. Or if the swiveling wheels are nearest you, you must be the person on the end of a whip to take a turn.
The TruStack tire dolly places two of the five wheels in an exactly parallel position, near the rotational center, leaving a front swivel wheel and two rear swivel wheels. The result is surprising. Regardless of the load, light or heavy, the TruStack Tire Dolly moves along easily with excellent directional stability, retaining the ability to stop and spin in place for tight turns or redirection.
When families come to a tire store to make a purchase, it is often the case that parental distraction becomes an opportunity for unsupervised mischief. When your barrel stack displays are built on TruStack Tire Dollys, you won't have to worry about little guys like this learning a lesson in physics the hard way. Let them learn it in school. Build your displays on TruStack Tire Dollys.
Customers and their vehicles are valuable. By building your barrel stack displays on a TruStack Tire Dolly, you will be taking an extra step toward protecting your customers and their vehicles from falling tires.