i have had to ship a few heavy items lately, and the shipping costs via
UPS were quite expensive, especially when you have to also insure for
several thousand dollars. what is the best way to ship something tha
weighs maybe 50# and is worth $4000?

wrote:
i have had to ship a few heavy items lately, and the shipping costs
via
UPS were quite expensive, especially when you have to also insure for
several thousand dollars. what is the best way to ship something tha
weighs maybe 50# and is worth $4000?

Within North America Truck freight. Look for freight or trucking
company.

In article .com,
wrote:
i have had to ship a few heavy items lately, and the shipping costs via
UPS were quite expensive, especially when you have to also insure for
several thousand dollars. what is the best way to ship something tha
weighs maybe 50# and is worth $4000?

If it's only fifty pounds, try FedEx Ground. Cheaper than UPS, and the
insurance is reasonably priced. And unlike UPS, they actually will make
good on the insurance without being taken to court.

If it's really heavy, try BAX Global.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 27 Mar 2005 16:08:04 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

In article .com,
wrote:
i have had to ship a few heavy items lately, and the shipping costs via
UPS were quite expensive, especially when you have to also insure for
several thousand dollars. what is the best way to ship something tha
weighs maybe 50# and is worth $4000?

If it's only fifty pounds, try FedEx Ground. Cheaper than UPS, and the
insurance is reasonably priced. And unlike UPS, they actually will make
good on the insurance without being taken to court.

The word I hear is the opposite... FEDEX stonewalls all claims whereas
UPS will actually deal with you, especially if you are a regular
customer.

Al

In article .com writes:

what is the best way to ship something tha
weighs maybe 50# and is worth $4000?

For 50 pounds (that ain't heavy!) I'd probably go with FedEx or air
freight. For a few hundred pounds (2" tape deck, console) truck and a
good crate.

Find a buyer for that Nagra T already?



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"playon" wrote in message
...
On 27 Mar 2005 16:08:04 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

In article .com,
wrote:
i have had to ship a few heavy items lately, and the shipping costs via
UPS were quite expensive, especially when you have to also insure for
several thousand dollars. what is the best way to ship something tha
weighs maybe 50# and is worth $4000?

If it's only fifty pounds, try FedEx Ground. Cheaper than UPS, and the
insurance is reasonably priced. And unlike UPS, they actually will make
good on the insurance without being taken to court.

The word I hear is the opposite... FEDEX stonewalls all claims whereas
UPS will actually deal with you, especially if you are a regular
customer.

Al

I haven't dealt with FedEx on a claim but I've seen UPS 'play the game'
before of being real nice and sending a rep out to inspect damage . . . and
then after a while you call to find out what happened to your claim and they
are real nice and say they are checking into it and then you call a few
weeks later and they send out a nice rep . . . . rinse / repeat . . . .six
months later you realize it's costing you more in time than the damage is so
you give up.

I recommend to anyone that your best insurance is to go total overkill on
the packaging. If you don't think the contents of your package wouldn't
survive being tossed out of a second story window or shoved out of a car
going 25 MPH, then it' not packed well enough. If at all possible use the
original manufacturer's box, with all of the supports and material and seal
it up with lots of tape. THEN put that inside of a larger box that will have
3 to 6 inches of space on all sides and fill with packing peanuts, crumpled
paper or foam etc and seal that up with lots of strong tape. Also, inside
each box attach the "to" and "from" address so in case the shipping label
gets torn off of the outside, they find who it belongs to if they open it
up.

And packing heavy items is even more difficult. Bubble wrap, mattress /
pillow foam and even foam peanuts can be insufficient to protect heavy
items.

--
John L Rice

Mike Rivers wrote:

For 50 pounds (that ain't heavy!) I'd probably go with FedEx or air
freight.

When I read the subject I was thinking "Heavy" meant too
heavy for UPS/FedEx as in needing truck freight.

For a few hundred pounds (2" tape deck, console) truck and a
good crate.

I had my console shipped from Texas to Nashville,
and used C&F (Craters and Freighters). They went
out and picked it up, crated it (did a good job)
and sent it to Nashville where I went to their
terminal and uncrated it. They were flexible with
the arrangments, but not exactly what I would call
cheap.

rd

John L Rice wrote:
And packing heavy items is even more difficult. Bubble wrap, mattress /
pillow foam and even foam peanuts can be insufficient to protect heavy
items.

Styrofoam peanuts work OK, but often with heavy things, during shipping
things jostle around, and the heavier items tend to end up at the bottom
of the box while the styrofoam peanuts end up at the top since they
are very lightweight. As a result, you've got lots of padding on the
top where shock is unlikely to happen and no packing at the bottom for
when the UPS guy drops it out of the truck onto the concrete 5 ft below.

That is, unless you put some barriers in place to keep the peanuts from
moving around. For instance, you can put a layer of styrofoam peanuts
in the box, then put a big piece of cardboard as big as the bottom of
the box on top of them, then tape that, then put your item (or box)
inside and surround it with stryofoam peanuts, then maybe another
layer of cardboard and more peanuts at the top.

Or just use some kind of packing material that isn't made of small
particles which behave like sand (i.e. almost liquid).

A friend once worked at a place where they had a machine that would
pump out some kind of soft foam which would quickly dry and harden
into rigid foam. You could wrap a piece of (in his case, computer)
gear in a bag, then spray some of that in the bottom of a box,
put the gear on top of it, and then spray more until the box filled
up. Presto, one gigantic solid piece of foam with a hollow center
containing your equipment. If it weren't kind of stupidly impractical,
I'd love to have one of these machines...

Aha, here is a pictu

http://www.propakinc.com/sprayfoam.html

And a place that makes some equipment:

http://www.ezflofoam.com/

- Logan

"Logan Shaw" wrote in message
...
John L Rice wrote:
And packing heavy items is even more difficult. Bubble wrap, mattress /
pillow foam and even foam peanuts can be insufficient to protect heavy
items.

Styrofoam peanuts work OK, but often with heavy things, during shipping
things jostle around, and the heavier items tend to end up at the bottom
of the box while the styrofoam peanuts end up at the top since they
are very lightweight. As a result, you've got lots of padding on the
top where shock is unlikely to happen and no packing at the bottom for
when the UPS guy drops it out of the truck onto the concrete 5 ft below.

That is, unless you put some barriers in place to keep the peanuts from
moving around. For instance, you can put a layer of styrofoam peanuts
in the box, then put a big piece of cardboard as big as the bottom of
the box on top of them, then tape that, then put your item (or box)
inside and surround it with stryofoam peanuts, then maybe another
layer of cardboard and more peanuts at the top.

Or just use some kind of packing material that isn't made of small
particles which behave like sand (i.e. almost liquid).

A friend once worked at a place where they had a machine that would
pump out some kind of soft foam which would quickly dry and harden
into rigid foam. You could wrap a piece of (in his case, computer)
gear in a bag, then spray some of that in the bottom of a box,
put the gear on top of it, and then spray more until the box filled
up. Presto, one gigantic solid piece of foam with a hollow center
containing your equipment. If it weren't kind of stupidly impractical,
I'd love to have one of these machines...

Aha, here is a pictu

http://www.propakinc.com/sprayfoam.html

And a place that makes some equipment:

http://www.ezflofoam.com/

- Logan

You can carve pieces of 2" thick polystyrene to fit the outer dimensions of
the item and interlock them to form a similar load-bearing shell, then make
a tight-fitting box with double-corrugated cardboard, which can be gotten in
large sizes for free from car dealers, lots of replacement parts ship in it,
windshields etc. Works great for poweramps. If the item needs protection
from high G's, put that box inside another box with 3" on all sides filled
with chip foam, pack it as tight as you can and it won't resettle. Takes
most of an hour and makes a considerable mess, but costs under $10.

In article .com writes:

I had my console shipped from Texas to Nashville,
and used C&F (Craters and Freighters). They went
out and picked it up, crated it (did a good job)
and sent it to Nashville where I went to their
terminal and uncrated it. They were flexible with
the arrangments, but not exactly what I would call
cheap.

A friend of mine has bought machine tools (like lathes and milling
machines) on eBay and had them shipped. They're harder to break than
tape decks, but shipping always cost more than the purchase cost of
the item. And for one, he had to rent a fork lift to get it from where
the trucker could leave it to where it needed to go.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Logan Shaw wrote:

John L Rice wrote:
And packing heavy items is even more difficult. Bubble wrap, mattress /
pillow foam and even foam peanuts can be insufficient to protect heavy
items.

Styrofoam peanuts work OK, but often with heavy things, during shipping
things jostle around, and the heavier items tend to end up at the bottom
of the box while the styrofoam peanuts end up at the top since they
are very lightweight. As a result, you've got lots of padding on the
top where shock is unlikely to happen and no packing at the bottom for
when the UPS guy drops it out of the truck onto the concrete 5 ft below.

That is, unless you put some barriers in place to keep the peanuts from
moving around. For instance, you can put a layer of styrofoam peanuts
in the box, then put a big piece of cardboard as big as the bottom of
the box on top of them, then tape that, then put your item (or box)
inside and surround it with stryofoam peanuts, then maybe another
layer of cardboard and more peanuts at the top.

Or just use some kind of packing material that isn't made of small
particles which behave like sand (i.e. almost liquid).

A friend once worked at a place where they had a machine that would
pump out some kind of soft foam which would quickly dry and harden
into rigid foam. You could wrap a piece of (in his case, computer)
gear in a bag, then spray some of that in the bottom of a box,
put the gear on top of it, and then spray more until the box filled
up. Presto, one gigantic solid piece of foam with a hollow center
containing your equipment. If it weren't kind of stupidly impractical,
I'd love to have one of these machines...

Aha, here is a pictu

http://www.propakinc.com/sprayfoam.html

And a place that makes some equipment:

http://www.ezflofoam.com/

- Logan

There are similar sorts of things that don't require the machine. You
pop an inner bag of chemicals, sort of like one of those instant-ice cold
packs. The foam then expands inside of the outer bag to make a
moldable layer for your thing to nest itself into. Try the specialty
shipping catalogs.

--Dale

"Dale Farmer" wrote in message
...


Logan Shaw wrote:

John L Rice wrote:
And packing heavy items is even more difficult. Bubble wrap, mattress
/
pillow foam and even foam peanuts can be insufficient to protect heavy
items.

Styrofoam peanuts work OK, but often with heavy things, during shipping
things jostle around, and the heavier items tend to end up at the bottom
of the box while the styrofoam peanuts end up at the top since they
are very lightweight. As a result, you've got lots of padding on the
top where shock is unlikely to happen and no packing at the bottom for
when the UPS guy drops it out of the truck onto the concrete 5 ft below.

That is, unless you put some barriers in place to keep the peanuts from
moving around. For instance, you can put a layer of styrofoam peanuts
in the box, then put a big piece of cardboard as big as the bottom of
the box on top of them, then tape that, then put your item (or box)
inside and surround it with stryofoam peanuts, then maybe another
layer of cardboard and more peanuts at the top.

Or just use some kind of packing material that isn't made of small
particles which behave like sand (i.e. almost liquid).

A friend once worked at a place where they had a machine that would
pump out some kind of soft foam which would quickly dry and harden
into rigid foam. You could wrap a piece of (in his case, computer)
gear in a bag, then spray some of that in the bottom of a box,
put the gear on top of it, and then spray more until the box filled
up. Presto, one gigantic solid piece of foam with a hollow center
containing your equipment. If it weren't kind of stupidly impractical,
I'd love to have one of these machines...

Aha, here is a pictu

http://www.propakinc.com/sprayfoam.html

And a place that makes some equipment:

http://www.ezflofoam.com/

- Logan

There are similar sorts of things that don't require the machine. You
pop an inner bag of chemicals, sort of like one of those instant-ice cold
packs. The foam then expands inside of the outer bag to make a
moldable layer for your thing to nest itself into. Try the specialty
shipping catalogs.

--Dale



This sort of foam is available in bulk five gallon containers. It is a two
part formula. I once used it to fill 55 gallon drums used as floats for a
boat dock. I didn't get it, so I can't help with source.

Steve King

wrote:
i have had to ship a few heavy items lately, and the shipping costs
via
UPS were quite expensive, especially when you have to also insure for
several thousand dollars. what is the best way to ship something tha
weighs maybe 50# and is worth $4000?

As posted, FedEx ground is a good deal, but you have other options:
DHL, RPS (Roadway Package Systems?), Airborne, etc. Maybe even good
ol' US Postal.

Double box, use styrofoam in BOTH boxes, make inner box about 4"
smaller in all dimensions than outer box.

Mikey Wozniak
Nova Music Productions
This sig is haiku

"novamusic" wrote in message

As posted, FedEx ground is a good deal, but you have other options:
DHL, RPS (Roadway Package Systems?), Airborne, etc.

I believe RPS was assimilated by FedEx, and is now FedEx Ground.

DHL assimilated Airborne Express awhile back.

Hal Laurent
Baltimore

With anything over 100 lbs. I always go Rockit Cargo. Great service
and I never had to make a claim. I have shipped multitracks with them
using a supplied "D-container" which is a cardboard box on top of a
shipping pallet. The machine gets bolted to the pallet. Heads and
electronics are removed and go seperately.

Anything under 100 lbs. goes UPS, with extreme double-box packing
mentioned before. With something heavy I usually tape straps to it.
Any claim of damage or loss (only once) was settled very quickly. It
is most important to refuse a damaged box, or make the delivery person
document damage when delivered.
Mike

"Hal Laurent" wrote in message
news

"novamusic" wrote in message

As posted, FedEx ground is a good deal, but you have other options:
DHL, RPS (Roadway Package Systems?), Airborne, etc.

I believe RPS was assimilated by FedEx, and is now FedEx Ground.

DHL assimilated Airborne Express awhile back.

Hal Laurent
Baltimore


You are correct sir!

--
John L Rice

in article ,
at wrote on 3/27/05 12:01 PM:

i have had to ship a few heavy items lately, and the shipping costs via
UPS were quite expensive, especially when you have to also insure for
several thousand dollars. what is the best way to ship something tha
weighs maybe 50# and is worth $4000?


That's not heavy, or expensive! When I bought my Neotek board it cost me
$1k to get it shipped over from Florida on some special air-cushion van.

UPS or FedEx would be the best ways, considering the value. I work in a
vintage gear shop and we routinely ship very valuable amps and guitars and
we are using UPS again. They have been on their best behavior lately and
have not been breaking stuff like they were 5 years ago.

-jeff