Jet Pallet Jack Review PTW-2048B - Pro Tool Reviews

2022-05-19 07:23:34 By : Mr. Patrick Wu

Professional Tool Reviews for Pros

At a retail price of around $557, the Jet PTW-2048B pallet jack is an excellent value. It should fit the bill for most applications requiring a full-depth, narrow pallet truck. It's a great solution for anyone looking to move materials around while not requiring the floor space or clearance a full-size pallet jack occupies. Varying the pallet jack width and depth barely budges the price of these tools, so get what you need for your particular application.

In the 2600 square foot Pro Tool Reviews shop, we have a lot of moveable storage pieces. To move those items around, and give us a more flexible space, we use a Jet pallet jack. In particular, we chose the Jet PTW-2048B 20″ x 48″ pallet jack (identical to the Jet PTW-2048A). This Jet pallet jack, or pallet truck, has a 6600 lb capacity and narrow 20-inch wide forks. The capacity and compact design let us grab cabinets, pallets, and even custom-designed material racks and move them around the shop as needed. We’ll go over how we use it and see if this type of Jet pallet jack might be a good fit for your shop or small warehouse space.

Ironically, our pallet jack was delivered using…another pallet jack. That just made us laugh as we saw the first illustration of the value of this handy tool. All we had to do to get it up and running was install the handle. The provided instructions made this task easy, and it took just 5 minutes.

When we started shopping around for a pallet jack for our shop, we had several things in mind. First, we get a lot of deliveries. Sometimes these include large pallets with anything from tool chests to battery-powered zero-turn mowers. We wanted a compact solution—hence the choice of the 20-inch wide forks over the larger 27-inch forks. This lets us move around full-size pallets, but also access narrower spaces and products that don’t require that larger truck width. It limits us on larger, top-heavy items, but we don’t typically deal with a lot of that sort of material on a regular basis.

You want nice, large wheels on your pallet jack. Most pallet jacks cover this fairly well. The Jet Tools PTW-2048B pallet truck uses a pair of 6-1/4″ x 2″ steer wheels for maneuvering your load. Pallet jacks typically have larger wheels—some are as large as 7-inches or more in diameter. The wheels on this Jet pallet truck move very smoothly—even with heavier loads, so the overall design works well with the compact nature of this tool.

The load wheel size on this truck is 2-7/8 x 3-11/16, giving ample area to the non-steering side of the jack.

Most pallet jacks and trucks, including the PTW-2048B from Jet Tools, allow for good maneuverability. You get a full 200-degree turning radius on this one. Some jacks we’ve used have around 180 to 190-degrees so you get some extra dexterity with this tool. It really helps when you end up near a wall or doorway and still need to maneuver to get the load where you want it.

Both the raised and lowered fork heights matter when using a pallet jack. The Jet pallet truck delivers a nice, low 2.95-inch clearance and 7 1/2-inches of height when fully raised. That lets it easily fit underneath standard pallets as well as several storage cabinets we needed to move around. The 7.5-inches of fork height made sure our pallets got over the lip of our shop foundation easily and without scraping the concrete. The polyurethane wheels (all four of them) look durable and we expect many years of use out of them.

Any good-quality pallet jack or truck should have easy-to-use controls. In the case of the Jet Tools PTW-2048B, you get the choice of using the hand or foot controls to lower your load. That comes in handy (pun intended) when you want to use a single-hand operation to drop the load.

We recently insulated our shop in preparation for adding a central AC unit and heat pump. We do a lot of work in the shop and while installing radiant barrier helped, we still weren’t quite there. When pallets of R-19 and R-30 insulation started arriving, not to mention buckets of drywall mud and other needed items, the Jet PTW-2048B pallet truck gave us a way to keep our shop’s ingress and egress points clear.

Aside from playing musical chairs with pallets to let our drywall crew get their work done, we also used the Jet pallet jack to move around several other items. First, we have a wood material rack that holds more than a ton of dimensional lumber, OSB, plywood, LVL, and trim material used in our product testing. We initially built it on a set of heavy-duty casters. However, we quickly found that a pallet jack provided a much simpler means of moving around this heavyweight behemoth.

We also have several cabinets that we relocate from time to time. Our intention is to build custom pallets to let us move those at will, creating additional space in the corner of the shop for testing products. While we haven’t yet built the pallets, even moving the cabinets with just the pallet jack works since the minimum fork height lets us sneak underneath and get them off the ground.

The Jet PTW series pallet jack comes in five “flavors”, letting you choose between fork depths of 36–48 inches and fork spreads of the compact 20-inches to the more common 27-inches. If you need something more robust, the Jet JTX Series increases the load capacity to 8,000 pounds. Conversely, their JT Series provides options with a narrow 16″ pallet jack width all the way up to 27 x 48-inch models. The JT line supports up to 5,500 pounds.

At a retail price of around $557, the Jet PTW-2048B pallet jack is an excellent value. It should fit the bill for most applications requiring a full-depth, narrow pallet truck. It’s a great solution for anyone looking to move materials around while not requiring the floor space or clearance a full-size pallet jack occupies. Varying the pallet jack width and depth barely budges the price of these tools, so get what you need for your particular application.

Get more information from the Jet website.

When he's not remodeling part of his house or playing with the latest power tool, Clint enjoys life as a husband, father, and avid reader. He has a degree in recording engineering and has been involved in multimedia and/or online publishing in one form or another since 1992.

Clint’s career has covered nearly the entire realm of audio and video production. After graduating at the top of his class with an Associates Degree in Recording Engineering, he began working for the famed Soundelux studios in 1994, one of the largest post-production companies specializing in audio for feature films & television. Working on a myriad of feature films, Clint honed his skills as a dialogue editor, foley editor, and sound designer. Years later, he moved into the expanding area of video editing, where he served as the company’s senior AVID video editor for three years.

Working for such clients as Universal Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Paramount Home Entertainment, NASA, Universal Studios, Planet Hollywood, SEGA, NASCAR, and others, Clint dealt extensively with client management as well as film & video editing, color correction, and digital video & MPEG compression. He also carries several THX certifications (Technician I and II, THX Video), and is ISF Level II Certified.

After founding the CD Media, Inc. publishing company in 1996, he went on to help start or grow several successful online publications, including Audioholics (as Editor-in-Chief for 12 years), Audiogurus, and AV Gadgets. In 2008, Clint founded Pro Tool Reviews followed by the landscape and outdoor power equipment-focused OPE Reviews in 2017. He also heads up the Pro Tool Innovation Awards, an annual awards program honoring innovative tools and accessories across the trades.

Crediting his excellent staff for the success of what is now the largest power tool review publication in the industry, Clint DeBoer hopes to see continued growth for the company as it rapidly expands its reach. Pro Tool Reviews critically reviews hundreds of hand tools, power tools, and accessories each year to help inform users about the best and newest products in the industry. Reaching everyone from the construction industry professional and tradesman to the serious DIYer, Pro Tool Reviews helps tool consumers shop better, work smarter, and stay aware of what tools and products can help put them at the top of their game.

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