Collapsible Wagon Truck for heavy stuff.

[Tenzin]

I’m think of buying the Black & Decker collapsible wagon. Weighs 10kilos folded, and carries 79kg.

Anyone else have this, or any other truck they think might be better? 
It’s for my cassette from my toilet. Wood, coal, you know, bulky stuff. But also for shopping. 
Let’s see how fast this descends into an argument!😉 No pedant calling. 

Edited May 10 by Tenzin
Misspelled

[5239]

I see people using them and they look the job,

 

I tend to take the boat to the services so don’t carry the heavy stuff far at all,

and don’t do long towpath walks with shopping,

 

But this summer I did buy a trolley for shopping, £20 from Digbeth market, 

was so impressed with it I went and got another,

[MtB]

1 hour ago, Tenzin said:

Anyone else have this, or any other truck they think might be better? 

 

Its hard to beat an ordinary wheelbarrow for lugging heavy-ish stuff along the towpath. Anything with additional wheels is more effort to wheel along.

[GUMPY]

My cassette has wheels on it, hardly worth putting it in a trailer.

 

[5239]

1 hour ago, GUMPY said:

My cassette has wheels on it, hardly worth putting it in a trailer.

 

ahh…but do your gas bottles have wheels ?

suppose you could kick them like a beer barrel 

And bags of coal with wheels would be ace!

2 hours ago, MtB said:

Its hard to beat an ordinary wheelbarrow for lugging heavy-ish stuff along the towpath. Anything with additional wheels is more effort to wheel along.

yep, wheelbarrow is the best,

is there a fold up version though?

[Jerra]

49 minutes ago, 5239 said:

ahh…but do your gas bottles have wheels ?

suppose you could kick them like a beer barrel 

And bags of coal with wheels would be ace!

yep, wheelbarrow is the best,

is there a fold up version though?

Something like this?

 

[GUMPY]

Coal and gas I never carried to the boat, they were always delivered, gas placed in the locker and coal onto the roof even if I wasn't there.

As I got old and moved to a marina I got a sack barrow as it was a long way down the pontoon to the mooring. 

 

[5239]

1 hour ago, Jerra said:

Something like this?

 

I dunno if I’d trust it to carry a two pack roll of toilet paper 😃

[Jerra]

20 minutes ago, 5239 said:

I dunno if I’d trust it to carry a two pack roll of toilet paper 😃

It's sold by a gardening firm and claims 30Kg capacity.

[Jerra]

This one on line claims a weight of 10lbs and a load of 150lbs

 

[Tony Brooks]

10 hours ago, 5239 said:

I dunno if I’d trust it to carry a two pack roll of toilet paper 😃

 

My BiL was given one at the South of England Show as part of a deal that involved buying lots of meat from a trader. When we were clearing his house with him, I tried to carry stuff to the car, to go to the tip, and found it was flimsy and flexed too much side to side if there was much weight in it. I would not have one.

10 hours ago, 5239 said:

I dunno if I’d trust it to carry a two pack roll of toilet paper 😃

 

That looks to have less flex in the frame because there are no moving joints.

Edited May 11 by Tony Brooks

[TheBiscuits]

In my experience, collapsible trolleys always live up (or down!) to their name.

 

A decent (non folding) sack truck with pneumatic tyres not solid wheels works well on most towpaths and doesn't take up a lot of space.  

 

I think @Jen-in-Wellies uses a modified bike trailer to shift coal and gas bottles.

 

Of course the reason the canal exists in the first place is that moving stuff by boat is easier than by land without a motor vehicle ...

[David Mack]

I once came across someone towing a new gas bottle back to his boat. Even full ones float, so the chap had tied a long rope around the protective guard on the top of the bottle and then thrown the bottle into the canal. He said it was easier than carrying it along the towpath, despite the need to hoik it out of the water at the end.

[Mike Coombes]

1 hour ago, David Mack said:

I once came across someone towing a new gas bottle back to his boat. Even full ones float, so the chap had tied a long rope around the protective guard on the top of the bottle and then thrown the bottle into the canal. He said it was easier than carrying it along the towpath, despite the need to hoik it out of the water at the end.

 

During the ill fated attempt by Calor to ditch supplying 3.9 Propane and 4.5 Butane cylinders-the sized used on many yachts, motorboats and caravans/motorhomes, I bought a £20 connecting pipe and filled my own 3.9 Propane cylinders from a 13 kilo cylinder.

 

Before some scream "Illegal/Dangerous/Bad Practice" I researched long and hard, spoke to a guy who has been doing it with refrigerant gasses for years and watched them in New Zealand where you can get a cylinder filled in all sorts of places-including self service booths at petrol stations.

 

When 80% full of the liquid gas, they are almost, but not quite, neutraly bouyant. They float, but only just!

 

We have a folding four wheel trolly with canvas sides and bottom. 60 Quid from Amazon, earned its keep many times over. They are available with fatter, bigger diameter wheels for beach use. Google 'foldable beach trolly' - loads will come up.

 

Recommended.

[Alan de Enfield]

44 minutes ago, Mike Coombes said:

During the ill fated attempt by Calor to ditch supplying 3.9 Propane and 4.5 Butane cylinders-the sized used on many yachts, motorboats and caravans/motorhomes, I bought a £20 connecting pipe and filled my own 3.9 Propane cylinders from a 13 kilo cylinder

 

At last someone else admits to doing it - I am no longer a lone voice.

I've been doing it for year and I'm still here.

 

I fill mine from a 47 kg cylinder works out at a much lower price per kg/litre

 

I even fill my small camping gas cannisters ( not the puncture type) from big propane cylinders, and have done it for many years.

 

Of course now you will get the usual reply from the forum experts that you cannot do it as the Calor link pipes has a no-return valve in it.

 

If you can freeze or even chill the receiving (small cylinder) you get a better, smoother fill, but obviously still stop at 80%

[truckcab79]

On 10/05/2025 at 16:24, Tenzin said:

I’m think of buying the Black & Decker collapsible wagon. Weighs 10kilos folded, and carries 79kg.

Anyone else have this, or any other truck they think might be better? 
It’s for my cassette from my toilet. Wood, coal, you know, bulky stuff. But also for shopping. 
Let’s see how fast this descends into an argument!😉 No pedant calling. 

Absolutely invaluable.   Literally everyone at our marina uses one.  
 

Get one with wide wheels though. Slim ones will leave you stranded on wet ground.  If you can find wide pneumatic ones so much the better but wide always regardless.  

[Jen-in-Wellies]

9 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

I think @Jen-in-Wellies uses a modified bike trailer to shift coal and gas bottles

A homemade bike trailer. Currently not able to shift gas bottles as a modification to the trailer means the cradle for a gas bottle doesn't fit. Need to get my saw out!

[TheBiscuits]

1 hour ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

A homemade bike trailer. Currently not able to shift gas bottles as a modification to the trailer means the cradle for a gas bottle doesn't fit. Need to get my saw out!

 

I'm fairly sure that sawing the end off a gas bottle so it fits your trailer is a) a bad idea and b) against Calor's terms of service ...

[Mike Coombes]

21 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

At last someone else admits to doing it - I am no longer a lone voice.

I've been doing it for year and I'm still here.

 

I fill mine from a 47 kg cylinder works out at a much lower price per kg/litre

 

I even fill my small camping gas cannisters ( not the puncture type) from big propane cylinders, and have done it for many years.

 

Of course now you will get the usual reply from the forum experts that you cannot do it as the Calor link pipes has a no-return valve in it.

 

If you can freeze or even chill the receiving (small cylinder) you get a better, smoother fill, but obviously still stop at 80%

 

 

 Yes Alan, cooling the recieving bottle and warming the donor makes transfer far quicker. I do it, when possible, on a sunny day. My donor is upside down and wrapped in a black bn liner, the reciever in a plastic tub of cold water, sometimes with an ice pack or two in it. The black bin liner absorbs the heat from the sun surprisingly quickly.

 

I could, like you, use a bigger donor bottle, but too much weigh for me at my advanced years!

 

I get 3 full 3.9's, one just over half full from a 13 kilo cylinder. A substantial saving!

[ditchcrawler]

50 minutes ago, Mike Coombes said:

 

 

 Yes Alan, cooling the recieving bottle and warming the donor makes transfer far quicker. I do it, when possible, on a sunny day. My donor is upside down and wrapped in a black bn liner, the reciever in a plastic tub of cold water, sometimes with an ice pack or two in it. The black bin liner absorbs the heat from the sun surprisingly quickly.

 

I could, like you, use a bigger donor bottle, but too much weigh for me at my advanced years!

 

I get 3 full 3.9's, one just over half full from a 13 kilo cylinder. A substantial saving!

When I was a teenager I worked at a camp/caravan site, Every change over we put a full gas cylinder on the static caravans that were rented out. The part used ones were hung up side down and connected to other part empty ones to fill them for next week.

[Tony Brooks]

1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:

When I was a teenager I worked at a camp/caravan site, Every change over we put a full gas cylinder on the static caravans that were rented out. The part used ones were hung up side down and connected to other part empty ones to fill them for next week.

 

We tried that at on the hire fleet, but found that although it worked we got a large build up of horrible brown oily liquid that locked the inlet filters on some of the gas fridges, and also tended to cause problems if there was a low point in the pipe. Maybe Calor are better at avoiding the build up of liquid in the bottles nowadays.

[ditchcrawler]

25 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

We tried that at on the hire fleet, but found that although it worked we got a large build up of horrible brown oily liquid that locked the inlet filters on some of the gas fridges, and also tended to cause problems if there was a low point in the pipe. Maybe Calor are better at avoiding the build up of liquid in the bottles nowadays.

Its a long time since I was a teenager Tony,  

[alias]

1 hour ago, Tony Brooks said:

We tried that at on the hire fleet, but found that although it worked we got a large build up of horrible brown oily liquid that locked the inlet filters on some of the gas fridges, and also tended to cause problems if there was a low point in the pipe.

 

I've been wondering where the oily residue that tended to coat the burner on my Alde boiler, and provided a scattering of black particles after using rings on the gas hob came from.