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by Peter Brett - August 2005
For more information call Christine
01444 440188
01444 440188
U.T.D. Trestlemania!
For a start I would recommend them for any number of household jobs from painting to hedge cutting. Forget the other less sturdy products, a set of these will set you up very well.
For the professional jobbing builder, carpenter or decorator they would be equally useful. Firstly, they can be dismantled in seconds so that they store flat in the back of the van. Secondly, they are light enough to be lugged up stairs. Thirdly, they are strong enough to hold as much weight as you can load onto them. (Nominally 175 Kgs, but destruction tests have revealed that much heavier weights can be withstood) Fourthly, they are made of plastic so they can be left out in the rain and won’t rust or rot. And finally they are really stable and give a feeling of safety and confidence to the user on rough or uneven ground.
The design is a very simple one. The parts are made of reinforced plastic. This material is heavily ribbed and triangulated so that you get maximum strength and minimum weight. The crosspiece of the trestle has 3 slots on each side into which the roughly triangle shaped legs are slid. The three slots give three working heights of 62cm, 72cm and 82cm. The legs have a matching slot to fit the crosspiece, and are very solidly made, The ground contact points on each triangle-shaped leg are 37cm apart and have grippy feet. They also slot into the crosspiece at an angle, creating, in effect, another stable triangle. All aspects of the design coincide to give a stable footprint that can cope with some irregularity in the standing surface, as well as giving sideways and lengthways rigidity.
I was a little worried that the leg and crosspiece slots would wear easily and allow the legs to slip out when being carried, or worse still, become loose and unsafe. However in the time I have used them, they have remained solid. To take the legs out however you don’t need brute force or a hammer, because the friction fit is just enough. The junction between leg and crosspiece I found, was also a good place to put my foot when getting up onto the highest level of the trestle. Perhaps not recommended, but it worked for me.
I used the tallest height for attacking my dreaded Leylandii hedges with a hedgecutter and found that, even on the inevitably rough and uneven ground, I was able to make a stable and safe platform on which to work. I was also able to move the trestles about quite easily, one in each arm, to place them further on as the work progressed. What the user needs to add, of course, is the platform or work-surface to put between the crosspieces. I used a small and light platform from a ladder set I have, and found that it worked very well, although perhaps it was a bit narrow for safety in this context. I suspect that the average builder will get hold of a few scaffold planks, or fabricate a platform from ply and reinforcing planks to customise the UTD to his needs.
For the householder or DIYer the UTD can not only be used for painting and hedge-cutting etc, but with a big top (maybe an old door) it could become an impromptu barbecue table that would accommodate a serious number of guests.
I had one or two suggestions after using the UTD trestles for a week or so, and to be fair, when I mentioned them to Tom Hardy, who is marketing them, he told me that the matter is already in hand. I would have liked a handle in the centre of the crosspieces to help me carry them from place to place. (There are handles already in each end of the crosspieces) I am assured that work is underway to have another handle, but also a way of clipping the legs to the crosspiece so that each trestle can be carried and stored as a unit. These features would improve an already good product and hopefully make the end- user even more satisfied. Perhaps a non-slip surface on the top of the crosspieces would also ensure that the platform, whatever it is, would be less likely to slip in use.
I am in the process of tarting up my house with a view to selling it, hence my current interest in hedge-cutting and painting jobs. From my point of view the UTD trestles are an answer to my prayers. I can say now that they will be very hard used over the next four weeks of the summer holiday, and I daresay will be very useful when I move to a new house.
The “neighbour test” is also another indication of interest and viability. My neighbours know my line of work and shamelessly exploit the products I get sent for review by borrowing them whenever they think they could be of use. I have already had three requests to borrow the UTD trestles and I can see that I need to keep a close eye on them if I want to get a look in myself. In my view, the UTD trestles are a great product, well made and well designed, with a lot of potential to be very useful for a wide range of end-users. Check them out!
Independent Review by Peter Brett
Airstream Communications