Category: Uncategorized

It’s dark in the morning heading to work. Our shop is hidden in the trees on this beautiful morning. Although it takes a flash light to get to work, once there we are going full speed.

With all the supply chain issues it almost feels like we are back in the 70’s. 12 to 16 week lead time on products has eliminated the “just in time” ordering plan. We are seeing increases in both the cost of goods and even more in shipping. Again, it is back to the old days where one needs to keep track of pricing on a daily basis.

This morning, November 3rd, I received an email from a factory in China. The government there has limited them to three (3) days of work per week to combat their energy shortages. This won’t help (even though we do not buy from this particular factory) with shortages and long lead times.

We are trying to build up inventory on popular items. That means letting some products go if the sales don’t justify increasing their inventory levels. Where we used to order 2,000 of an item we have increased to 10,000 on really popular goods. Our shop cat is loving this, more boxes to check out, it seems they all need to get sniffed.

One change we notice from our customers is that more are calling to check if we have something in stock. Knowing how frustrating it is to place an order only to hear that it is on back order, we encourage picking up the phone and asking.

OK, one item that we will not divulge our inventory levels is cat treats. Chance has decreed them top secret.

Fingers crossed that 2022 returns life to normal but in the meantime we will do our best to get your products out on time.

Chance is our Quality Assurance Cat. You can see him working diligently making sure every strap is purr-fect. Actually want he really wants is lunch.

The good news is he has never taken to sleeping in the bins of straps, he has a comfortable bed that is closer to his food than our sewing area.

While Chance might not provide a top notch quality assurance program he does keep our shop rodent free. We are in the middle of a forest and mice are everywhere and a good cat really helps.

Should you be wondering where is tail is, he doesn’t have one. He is a Manx and they are born without tails. Originating on the Isle of Mann they were know to be great “mousers”.

You have just purchased a new tree, brought it home and dug a hole to properly plant it. All the while your local deer are watching and planning their attack. Left unprotected there won’t be a leaf left on the tree by morning. All the new growth will be nibbled off. Your investment is gone.

We live and work in deer country and have found a few simple tricks to protect our new plants and trees. You need to have a fence around the tree(s) and meeting the following criteria helps.

• High enough so it can not easily be jumped.
• Large enough so the deer can’t reach the trees without jumping in.
• Small enough so the deer don’t see an easy landing point.
• Easy to construct.
• Looks good.

Our solution has been to use 2″ diameter wooden treated “tree stakes” which are pointed on one end and “easy” to drive in to the ground. These support the fencing and here we use “cattle panels” which are 16′ long and 50″ high and are made from heavy galvanized steel wire.

The cattle panels can be bent nicely so your enclosure is an oval, or round, and for our trees, using 3 of the panels makes a nice enclosure that will fit at least 2 trees. Hooking them together is done with steel tie wire, easy to install and remove if you want to move the enclosure. Note in the image below that we have lapped the 2 panels we are connecting, that allows for a nice curve.

While keeping deer out is the object, humans need to get into the enclosure for weeding, watering and pruning. Cut a short length off of a 16′ cattle panel and attach it using shackles, zip ties or tie wire to form a door.

Some sort of snap will keep the door closed, and it’s easy to open.

Cutting cattle panels is easy if you have a “cut off tool/grinder”. We are lucky to have a cordless version so we can take it to the project site. Otherwise a hack saw will work but it will take quite a bit longer.

Tips

• Use a large tree instead of a post. Looking at the top image you can see that we actually have two trees helping to support this enclosure. Drive a screw into the tree and attach the cattle panel with tie wire.
  
• You can support your young trees using the cattle panel enclosure and tree straps.
• Where to get all this stuff? Farm supply stores are where we go. Lowes and Home Depot also sell cattle panels and tree stakes although they don’t stock them in every store.

We have a couple of new products in stock.

They are both designed for 1″ webbing and are made from steel. The cam buckle has a protective zinc coating and an 1100 pound breaking strength. This is the strongest cam buckle we carry.

Also new is a steel G-Hook with a black powder coating sized for 1″ webbing. These will hook into MOLLE or a loop made from 1″ webbing and provide adjustment so you can cinch down your load. While not as light as aluminum or plastic they have a nice profile and really work well.

Buy Cam Buckles

Buy G-Hooks

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1 January 2021

Brexit has happened and one of the consequences was a change in how the UK tax authorities are dealing with import shipments. Now the exporter (for instance Straps to Go) is required to create an account with UK Tax and collect VAT on all shipments going to the UK. The exporter must then file a statement quarterly with UK Tax and remit and taxes collected.

For an exporter this requires enough business in the UK to cover the costs of managing the receipts and reimbursement to the government. Straps to Go is not in the position to handle this burden.

The only option that is available to us is to ship by United Parcel Service. This is much more expensive than putting something in the mail, additionally UPS uses a Customs Broker to handle collection of taxes and duties and they charge the importer for this service on top of the shipping costs.

There seem to be exceptions for Business to Business sales where the importer can provide us with their VAT Registration Number. I am not sure how the US Postal System will deal with this so if you are a business wishing to import from us please give us the particulars and we will investigate further.

At £135 the rules change again since duty will be collected. Again, contact us if you have an order that exceeds this amount.

Otherwise we have no economical way to ship to the UK at this time.

Further reading from UK.gov

Buy At Straps to Go

Last winter my wife slipped on the ice and messed up her neck/shoulder. She has found a great Physical Therapist at Therapeutic Associates in Selah, WA and on one of her visits they put a clean pillow case over her head so that the strap on the device wouldn’t touch her. Sorry to say they didn’t take a photo but she did ask why they weren’t using easy to clean straps.

Measurements were taken and prototypes made. Remeasure and another round of prototypes and then they took her off that machine and on to a Saunders Cervical Traction Device. Another hard to clean strap there so we designed one using easy to clean BioThane material that the staff and patients seem to like.

Full specifications for the Head Restraint Strap

This strap can be cleaned using disinfectants already on hand and in this era of COVID-19 that is quite important.

Straps to Go manufactures a number of straps for medical use and supplies buckles made by ACW (Acculoc brand) for replacement uses. Medical Straps & Hardware web page.

Buy At Straps to Go

Watching TV today I saw an ad for the WeatherTech CupFone with a new feature, a holder for hand sanitizer. The ad talks about how you can never find your phone or hand sanitizer in your car and they are right.

Several months ago I had the same problem. Where in the world is that bottle of hand sanitizer? We have come to like the product made by Heritage Distilling which is a local company. It comes in booze bottles so we found smaller plastic containers that we could use in our cars. Mine is cylindrical in shape and turned out to be very elusive.

A bit of ballistic nylon and a snap later and I had a holster for the bottle. I screwed the male portion of the snap in to my center console, trucks these days have plenty of plastic, and after a few months it continues to perform flawlessly. The bottle is a TSA approved size and it snaps closed nicely and doesn’t leak.

Any fabric would work. Ballistic nylon is nice since it is very stiff. Lighter material might need more folds at the top or a piece of wire inserted so that it stays open- along with quick draw it is nice to be able to drop the container back in. This is a project that only took a few minutes, but then again we have sewing machines set up all the time.

If you want to try the Heritage Distilling hand sanitizer, at least in Washington State Costco is carrying it.

Buy At Straps to Go

A large industrial supply company advertises “shock-absorbing nylon webbing”.What is it and how does it differ from standard nylon webbing?

All nylon products stretch. That is the nature of the material and if we were talking about rope, it would be described as a “dynamic” product. If you were rock climbing and fell, you wouldn’t want to be tethered to the mountain with a steel cable where there would be no give when it got fully extended. Your body would be a wreck. One climbing rope manufacturer says their dynamic ropes provide a “soft catch”. In the marine industry nylon is used for anchor and mooring lines but never as a tow line.

Polyester fibers provide little stretch. In the rope world they comprise what are known as “static” ropes. Sheets and halyards on a sailboat along with tow lines all need to be static ropes.

In the webbing world the terms static and dynamic are rarely used. If you are designing a dog leash there will never be enough of a load that the user could tell the difference. Other factors are more important, how does it feel in your hand, does it come in the right color and what is the cost are all common areas of interest. Unless you are making fall prevention or load securing gear, static or dynamic hardly comes in to play.

Now to answer the question-

All nylon webbing is shock absorbing, or dynamic. You can check out our nylon webbing options to see what we stock. The thinner the webbing, for example #630 is thinner than #7400, the more it will stretch for a given load but they all stretch- or are shock-absorbing.

Interested in ‘static’ webbing? Polyester is the way to go. It is more expensive than nylon and color options are very limited.