TubeNet

Dear Tubenetters,

Sometimes, we need to ship.
I recently sold a horn and had to ship it from Columbus, GA to Washington state. I only had a gig bag so I looked high and low on Tubenet to find a suitable way to ship. After hearing and reading horror stories of UPS, and UPS quoting me over $325 to ship it with out packaging and insurance, I decided to build a wooden crate.

Now I am not a carpenter by trade, but with a cordless drill, circular saw, $25 of materials and a few hours, I turned out a custom wooden box to ship the horn. I filled it with everythign known to man in ways of packaging materials including but not limited to heavy Styrofoam, plastic wrap, peanuts etc. I then shipped it Greyhound for $81.

Now with that being said, I haven't heard if it has been received in one piece, I will update later.

My question for you is, has anyone come up with schematics, drawings or measurements for a great crate? Any suggestions for those who need to build a box for shipping other than winging it?

Thanks,

Adam

I got a box here if someone needs one.

I suspect that what is between the box and the tuba might be more important than the box itself. The packing needs to absorb any impact forces before they are transferred to the tuba and stop the tuba from moving in the box. The box needs to hold together when dropped which is more to do with fastening and bracing than panel strength.

Regards

Gerard

I was told it also needed to withstand something being placed onto it as well

Shipping places do stack stuff up with fork lifts.
You can label something "Top Loading" but I'm not sure whether this gets taken notice of. "Fragile" stickers get laughed at. When the guys see a Fragile sticker they will pick up the box and shake it to show what a fool the person who put the sticker on is.

A square box made from 1/2" ply with good corner joins and maybe a 1/2" pine exoskeloton stapled on would probably withstand something on top of it better than it would being dropped or being hit in the middle with fork lift tines. (Guys who drive forks lifts all day every day go FAST).

When I had a tuba shipped from the US to Australia I used an international removal firm. Their day to day business is moving houselots of peoples personal possessions, i.e. dining tables, grand pianos, etc. My theory was that they would hopefully have a different approach to guys moving bulk lots of stuff that nobody owns yet.

Regards

Gerard

KiltieTuba wrote:Art has an example on his site here:
http://www.galvanizedjazz.com/tuba/BigConn.html" target="_blank" target="_blank

I second Ian's suggestion. It is a bit excessive, but will definitely get the job done.

The key to shipping a Tuba is to isolate any motion within the box, and put as much distance as you can manage between the walls of the box and the instrument. Especially near the bow and bell flare. Avoid peanuts because they allow the horn to shift. The best stuff to use is the large bubble wrap with the 1 inch or larger bubbles.

It has been a long time since I saw any updates on the Sloan Suspension Box.

Donn wrote:It has been a long time since I saw any updates on the Sloan Suspension Box.

Adequate for normal case duty. It does take a bit of time to put in/take out the helicon - no more than 2 minutes to take out, perhaps 5 minutes to lash in and be satisfied. Note that there's lots of room (say, to stash a gig bag, which would also provide some extra padding) - the inside is all empty space!

Probably not rigid enough for shipping. I can manhandle this by rolling it like a ball. It will survive drops from 5 feet. I'm not confident it would survive stacking, or dropping from 10 feet on a corner, or a determined baggage handler putting all his weight on one of the long members. But, it will survive being picked up overhead and thrown across the room. I should probably try shipping it (empty first, then with a wall hanger inside) to see how it survives. It does flex a bit, and the corners and edges are probably vulnerable to hard, heavy objects hitting them just right, at speed. I would not hesitate to use it in any situation where I had some control over how it was stacked (for example, "under the bus" style shipping). The "belt" around the middle has grips on all 4 sides. One zipper. Everything is stock mail-order except the custom sewn cover.

Purely by chance, this JUST fits inside the back of my VW GTI. I could, perhaps, shave an inch or three off each dimension, if size were all-important.

This version has pockets on the inside of all faces, suitable for installing stiff sheets of material intended to improve resistance to puncture (think "fork lift").

Version 2.0 will be built out of stiffer (larger diameter) PVC. I suppose you could also make one out of metal pipe - it uses only 90degree 3-way fittings at the corners.

The ultimate version would be a commercially built shipping case with D-rings installed near the 8 corners (which is where my current lash points are located. No need for any other interior customization or fittings. 3x3x2 box with 8 D-rings and one face that lifts/folds open.

Oh - it also fits in a standard 3x3x2 cardboard box (with, or without the cloth cover). I would not hesitate to ship it anywhere in that configuration.

Comments? Suggestions?

sloan wrote: Comments? Suggestions?

Have I already mentioned how much stronger ABS black waste pipe is, compared to PVC? I think the smallest diameter available when I used it to make a bicycle trailer was 1 1/2 inches, so you already have a pretty good cross section to length ratio.

But even if I'm repeating myself, a new consideration (to me anyway): there is now also a black ABS "foam core" pipe, which is probably not what you want. If you can't get solid ABS any more, then forget I mentioned it!