Wood and Steel Mats
Also known as steel frame mats. Commonly made of spruce, pine, fir or a combination thereof surrounded on the edges by I Beam or HST steel. The steel is used to strengthen the mats and enable the manufactures of the mats to build them in larger sizes and to support more weight than an access mat. Common sizes are 6' x 30' or 8' x 40'. The biggest problem with this type of mat, particularly I Beam mats, is the fact that they can bend, and once the steel bends the mat cannot be repaired. Another common problem is wood breakage, on an I Beam mat this cannot be repaired, however an HST mat can still be repaired quite easily and cost effectively, reducing the cost to the owner/renter of the mats. However due to the increased cost of construction of HST mats, most companies do not build them.
Famous quotes containing the words wood and/or steel:
“To begin at the beginning: It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched courters’-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts.
Possess them not with fear. Take from them now
The sense of reckoning, ere th’ opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)