In previous blogs I lend a hand in helping to figure out what tools are the most important for a driver to carry with them on the road. I always list the obvious including things like spare fuses, wrenches, pliers, and of course duct tape.
Given that I am now dropping and hooking a lot of containers (not port, but rail intermodal) I encounter a lot of different company equipment throughout the course of a day on the road. Dropping and hooking somewhere between ten to fifteen chassis a day can mean a lot of extra work if anything is slightly off from perfect. Being compensated both by the mile and by the load under this contract, time is money! One container being improperly seated in its chassis by so much as half an inch could mean waiting anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour for the rail staff to flip it onto another chassis for you. That may not seem like a lot, but that little snag could be the difference between accepting that extra load at the end of the day or not. That is why I have added the B.F.H. to my list of must-have tools!
Since we seem to have acronyms for so many other things in this industry and all over for that matter, it is only fitting to have an acronym for a “Big Freaking Hammer”. Of course, when I heard it for the first time, the “F” in the acronym was used in a more expletive context. Regardless, it stands for exactly what it is. Whether dealing with aging metal pins on containers, stuck brake drums, or knocking loose some built-up ice from underneath your trailer, a B.F.H. seems to be just the tool. I always carried a standard size roofing hammer with a claw on the end for small jobs and removing nails from trailer floorboards, but this added a whole new level of McGyvering to my repertoire.
Like most tools I tend to adopt, this one found a warm place in my under-bunk tool storage right away. Accompanied by a chisel that safeguards against hand smacking, it is a multi-use tool that I wish I had added sooner. With its four-pound head and sturdy handle, it easily nudges loose even the most stubborn of weighted down pins on a 53,000-pound container chassis that won’t sit right. I highly suggest adding one to your toolbox. A real hard-working trucker deserves a hard-working hammer!