crating furniture

I would check with the local freight company and find out their regulations. They probably have specifics to cover their insurance obligations.

Lew

Dayton,
I ship many of my smaller pieces via DHL. They seem to take better care of it than UPS or FEDEX. Check out this page and see if the box you would pack it in falls in their limits, which I’m sure it does. Send it ground.
http://www.dhl-usa.com/IntlSvcs/dimweight/dimweight.asp?nav=Inttools/DimWeiCal
I usually buy or make a box that’s about 3 inches bigger than the piece all around, 4 inches on the bottom, pour some “peanuts” in the bottom and wrap it good with bubble wrap. Insure it for more than you think it’s worth and mark it fragile, and they’ll take good care of it.

-- Tim -- http://tmuli.com

I’ve shipped a few cribs across the country and I’ve done it a couple ways. I’ve ordered custom made heavy duty boxes, wrapped in bubble wrap and sent them on their way. They arrived in perfect condition. As long as there isn’t a lot of movement in the box, things are fine. The others I’ve used a shipping company that made their own boxes to order and padded and secured the product. Their boxes were better and their packing was fantastic. Unfortunately, both methods were rather expensive. Shipping a crib, springs and mattress from Michigan to Arizona ran about $400. Single item shipments are hard to get good pricing on.

-- Working at Woodworking http://www.VillageLaneFurniture.com

thanks guys, this was just what I was looking for.

dayton

I ship things all the time to other states. I usually look for a blanket wrap shipper for my pieces. No crating and less chance of damage (crated and shipped a tiger maple highboy to San Francisco once and they ran a forklift through the crate into the piece…shipped a tea table to Hilton Head via Fedex 2 day and they must have thrown the crate out of the plane as they flew over). I may be a little late with this info, however. you’ll have to do some research to find which companies pickup and deliver in your area.

-- Chuck Bender, period furniture maker, www.acanthus.com

Thanks for the advice Chuck, it is too late, I sent it DHL a couple days ago. I built a Hardboard box, filled it with a couple million peanuts and put that in a cardboard box, so I hope it makes it in one piece.

I will defiantly look into a Blanket wrap shipper next time around.

thanks again

Dayton

FYI

DHL (Day and a Half Late) Just signed a contract with UPS (U People Suck) for them, UPS, to provide all their Air Shipment services as Deutch Post (German Post Office.. who actually owns DHL) tries to shed it’s losing share of the Domestic US freight market by having their People wearing the DHL brand make the pick up and delivery on either end, and then behind the scenes UPS actually moves the freight for them. So the moral of the story is that no matter what brand you as the customer see’s at the door you never really know just who is handling your packages….....In any case, crate it and do your best to eliminate movement inside the crate and you should be ok. I have even seen some very delicate and expensive items covered with plastic to protect it then the voids in the box filled with expanding foam before the crate is closed. Good Luck and be sure to buy insurance for your item as most of the companies limit liability to like $100.00 maximum unless you purchase the extra insurnace at the time of shipment.

-- So Much Wood - So Little Time! --