Shipping a tuba (Props to Norm Pearson)

[JHardisk]

So, as many of you know, I'm selling off my tubas to fund the purchase of new equipment. My F tuba found a new home, and I remembered reading Norm Pearson's VERY detailed account of shipping a tuba, with pictures. So, I read it, followed step by step, and this is what I came up with:

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Norm, Thanks so much for taking the time to create that post! It helped me immensely!

(My wife and I own an internet retail business, and we ship just about 400 packages monthly. Never a tuba...)

I had a box made for this horn, and the gig bag worked perfectly to accommodate the 3-4" of bubble wrapping mummification. I chose loose fill, as air bags weren't readily available. I used almost 28 cubic feet of loose fill in this shipment!

[JHardisk]

More pics:

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[pgym]

I would be concerned about loose fill shifting around during transit so that the tuba eventually settles to the bottom of the box, largely rendering moot the protection the loose fill is intended to provide.

When Custom Music shipped my horn, they bubble-wrapped it as shown, and surrounded it on all sides with plastic shopping bags filled with foam peanuts (said bags were tied shut by the handles): a doubly clever solution that ensured that the fill (and horn) stayed in place during shipment AND prevented the avalanche of loose peanuts when I dug the horn out of the box.