| Author |
Topic: Shipping a PSG |
Larry Nemec
From:
Fulshear Texas, USA
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Posted 16 Jul 2014 11:40 am |
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| I apologize if this is the wrong section and I have already done a search with 21K returns so I'll take the easy way out and ask. I need to ship a PSG from Texas to Georgia. What is the best way to pack? Palate? Carrier? Build a crate? Any help appreciated! |
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Charley Hill
From:
The Dirty South
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Posted 16 Jul 2014 11:49 am
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I have used the UPS Store many times. Usually cost me around 125 and they pack it with the peanuts, works well.
_________________
Traveler, Peddler and Extreme life lover. Giving up is not an option. |
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Henry Matthews
From:
Texarkana, Ark USA
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Posted 16 Jul 2014 11:55 am
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I always wrap the case in bubble wrap and then put that into a cardboard box. Some of these wrapping and shipping places usually have box that will work. Just make sure there is no slack between case and box. Fill in slack places with Styrofoam peanuts.
Also make sure guitar is tight in case and can't move. I also brace the pedal bar part of case with small 2X4 blocks to keep the brace in place and tight in case its dropped. I also put cardboard between strings and pickups pretty tight to keep pickup from breaking. Hope this helps.
_________________
Henry Matthews
D-10 Magnum, 8 &5, dark rose color
D-10 1974 Emmons cut tail, fat back,rosewood, 8&5
Nashville 112 amp, Fishman Loudbox Performer amp, Hilton pedal, Goodrich pedal,BJS bar, Kyser picks, Live steel Strings. No effects, doodads or stomp boxes. |
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Scott Duckworth
From:
Etowah, TN Western Foothills of the Smokies
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Bob Knight
From:
Bowling Green KY
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Posted 16 Jul 2014 1:56 pm
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| Quote: |
| Also make sure guitar is tight in case and can't move. I also brace the pedal bar part of case with small 2X4 blocks to keep the brace in place and tight in case its dropped. I also put cardboard between strings and pickups pretty tight to keep pickup from breaking.] |
This part is VITAL!
Also,Peanuts are no good for packing anything as heavy as a Steel or amp. 
_________________
<b>Rick Johnson Cabinets<b>
<b>Brand X Custom Fiber Cases</b>
<b> John Pearse Thumb Picks, Bars and Strings</b>
"Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent."
— Steve Martin |
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Henry Matthews
From:
Texarkana, Ark USA
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Posted 16 Jul 2014 3:24 pm
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Bob, I only use peanuts inside the cardboard box for the ends, that is if it's a tight fit around and I have a little room in the ends. But you are very correct, no good for anything else to pack a steel.
_________________
Henry Matthews
D-10 Magnum, 8 &5, dark rose color
D-10 1974 Emmons cut tail, fat back,rosewood, 8&5
Nashville 112 amp, Fishman Loudbox Performer amp, Hilton pedal, Goodrich pedal,BJS bar, Kyser picks, Live steel Strings. No effects, doodads or stomp boxes. |
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Dan Beller-McKenna
From:
Durham, New Hampshire, USA
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Posted 17 Jul 2014 2:54 am
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Per the UPS store and packing peanuts:
I have received steels that were shipped with virtually no packing--practically just a box around the case--and had little or no damage. By the same token, I have also mistakenly driven the wrong way down a one-way street and not had a head-on collision. In all these cases, poor execution was saved by dumb luck; neither should be done on purpose. Packing peanuts will not keep the steel steady in the box, and a fall to a concrete floor could be fatal for the steel. |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 17 Jul 2014 4:45 am
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| Dan Beller-McKenna wrote: |
Packing peanuts will not keep the steel steady in the box, and a fall to a concrete floor could be fatal for the steel. |
To underline: a pedal steel or other heavy parcel stands a 25-40% chance of taking a fall, and the cart is moving about 10 MPH. I just watched a few trips of another shift: drop rates hover between 5 and 10%, and every heavy/bulky parcel rides a cart at least twice, and usually 4 times.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Charley Hill
From:
The Dirty South
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Posted 17 Jul 2014 5:17 am
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Sir,
Looks like some have answered your question and others gave opinions that wouldn't work.
Nothing is guaranteed when you hand over your instrument to any shipping company.
Texas to GA? Maybe meet in New Orleans and hand it over and then make a vacation out of it. THEN and only THEN will you know it has been delivered without incident.
You can package with braces, bubble wrap, peanuts or any other means of certainty and still have your steel end up damaged or destroyed. As a previous thread expounded on a UPS truck wrecked and caught on fire resulting in a huge catastrophe and a total loss.
Consulting with a shipping company whether it be FEDEX, UPS or whomever, may result in a more concrete answer to you and ensure safety to the instrument.
I will say this, (in my opinion) if you package it, you are on your own and the shipping company will not be very cooperative in hearing your case for claim. If the shipping company packages it, you have more leverage on getting a claim through the corporate red tape versus one that often involves a "Self Packaged" item.
I would be interested in hearing your choice/path and the results after delivery. You can email me or PM if you so desire.
My opinion is just that: OPINION. What has worked for me, may not work for you.
I have shipped a few steels halfway across the country without incident by the means I mentioned.
Best of luck and happy picking!
Charley
_________________
Traveler, Peddler and Extreme life lover. Giving up is not an option. |
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Charley Hill
From:
The Dirty South
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Posted 17 Jul 2014 5:19 am
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Sir,
Looks like some have answered your question and others gave opinions that wouldn't work.
Nothing is guaranteed when you hand over your instrument to any shipping company.
Texas to GA? Maybe meet in New Orleans and hand it over and then make a vacation out of it. THEN and only THEN will you know it has been delivered without incident.
You can package with braces, bubble wrap, peanuts or any other means of certainty and still have your steel end up damaged or destroyed. As a previous thread expounded on a UPS truck wrecked and caught on fire resulting in a huge catastrophe and a total loss.
Consulting with a shipping company whether it be FEDEX, UPS or whomever, may result in a more concrete answer to you and ensure safety to the instrument.
I will say this, (in my opinion) if you package it, you are on your own and the shipping company will not be very cooperative in hearing your case for claim. If the shipping company packages it, you have more leverage on getting a claim through the corporate red tape versus one that often involves a "Self Packaged" item.
I would be interested in hearing your choice/path and the results after delivery. You can email me or PM if you so desire.
My opinion is just that: OPINION. What has worked for me, may not work for you.
I have shipped a few steels halfway across the country without incident by the means I mentioned. Maybe I was lucky?
Best of luck and happy picking!
Charley
_________________
Traveler, Peddler and Extreme life lover. Giving up is not an option. |
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Kevin Raymer
From:
Chalybeate, Kentucky, USA
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Posted 18 Jul 2014 5:14 am
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Greg cuts haw has a good guide to use. IMHO
http://www.gregcutshaw.com/Shipping%20Steels/Shipping%20Steels.html
I had already been using a similar technique, but this is about as good of a shot as you are gonna get.
I remember in the early 90es being in DB,s Music in Bowling Green, KY and watching a
UPS driver drop a 3000 dollar keyboard 3 times after he got inside the store.
Bottom line.
Immobilize everything inside the case with packing.
Then put layers an layers of bubble wrap around the guitar.
At least 4 inches on all sides.
Then wrap the box around the bubble wrapped guitar.
If when you are done you can shake the box and Hear any rattles, you didn't pack it well enough..
If you do it right in most cases you'll be flirting with the max dimensions for regular large package shipping.
Then......
PRAY....
And not a vain prayer either. You need an ernest, heartfelt plea to the gods of pedal steel that they will watch over this instrument while in the hands of the heathens of the shipping industry.
I've shipping several pedal steels successfully and even more regular guitars and a number of tube amps.
And that's been my technique and I've been fairly successful.
If ups/fedex is gonna bust your package you can't stop them. No amount of bubble wrap will stop a fork lift fork, but you can hedge your get.
As a side note:
Bobbe Seymour told me one time that if you insure it for $5000 it becomes a "hand carry" package and gets special treatment.
I never tried that, but he told me that directly that's not 2nd hand..
_________________
Kevin Raymer
Zum / Knaggs / Breedlove
Fractal Audio |
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John Brabant
From:
Calais, VT, USA
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Posted 18 Jul 2014 5:42 am
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I would caution you to avoid UPS where possible. You may want to check in with bOb directly to get the particulars on insuring for $5K to get the hand-carry treatment. Also get made clear in writing with the person you are doing the transaction with as to who will be responsible should the steel be damaged in transit. This is important.
I am still in the process of suing UPS to collect on the steel I shipped with UPS. Their treatment of customers whose merchandise they destroy is abominable. Ship by Greyhound if at all possible.
See at link my saga:
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=266007&highlight=ups+disaster
_________________
John Brabant
1978 Emmons D-10 P-P |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 18 Jul 2014 5:44 am
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Kevin, the only forklifts at an FXG hub or terminal belong to the maintenance department. I assume UPS is the same. Talking with UPS drivers has indicated as much.
With us and Buster Brown, the guitar or amp will ride the flat cart, and they have similar drop rates off the carts, since the carts are similar. Brace the guitar inside the case, brace the bulkheads, as if you PLAN to have it drop 2-3 feet to concrete. With us and Brown, that's between a 1in 4 to a 1 in 3 chance.
As to the high value turning the item into "hand carry," that would require the unloader to notice such markings. I wouldn't expect that to work all the time.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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John Brabant
From:
Calais, VT, USA
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Posted 18 Jul 2014 5:55 am
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Also, BTW, UPS doesn't own the UPS Store. It is a franchise. If the UPS Store packs your steel, there is no guarantee that you will be reimbursed if your steel is damaged. What my research has found to be common practice is that when an item is damaged during shipping, UPS will say it is not their faulty, it is the fault of the packer, whether it is you or the UPS Store. So when the claim denial is brought to the UPS Store, they will say the item was properly packed and it is the fault of UPS and they bear the responsibility to reimburse you for the damage. So what you end up with is that you don't get the claim reimbursed and instead of having to sue just UPS, you now need to sue BOTH UPS and the UPS Store owner. I believe that paying the UPS Store $100's of dollars to pack your steel is a waste of money and actually places you in a more difficult legal predicament than if you had just packed the steel yourself. What is key is properly pack it and photo document each stage of the packing process before putting the final corrugated cardboard skin around the package, then photo document ALL 6 SIDES of the outside of the package. Then when you drop it off, photo document your dropping the package off at the UPS depot and make sure you get a signature on your receipt from the UPS official, as they will not process your claim without it. Then cross your fingers.
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John Brabant
1978 Emmons D-10 P-P |
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Jerry Horch
From:
Alva, Florida, USA
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Posted 19 Jul 2014 2:19 pm case shipping
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I made a case for my case. Lowes has 3/4" Styrofoam sheets,I cut to box my case,taped together fit really nice.Then covered it with their boxes that fit almost perfect again taping with good packaging tape.Marked it well,no stacking...very fragile ect. Got it back from Mr. Franklin in same box,snug as a bug. But.....I worried a bunch.
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Franklin D10 /Walker Sterio Steel JBL's /DigiTech Quad4/ Korg Toneworks/ Dobro DM 1000 / Santa Cruz Guitar VA |
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Mitch Ellis
From:
Collins, Mississippi USA
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Posted 19 Jul 2014 9:51 pm
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| Kevin Raymer wrote: |
the heathens of the shipping industry.
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The heathens of the shipping industry.  I've never heard it put that way.
Mitch |
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Tony Prior
From:
Charlotte NC
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Posted 20 Jul 2014 4:06 am
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just remember, peanuts settle to less than 50% shortly after closing the box..
The item inside is still at 100%... and heavy !
Personally I wouldn't let an outsider ( UPS store or Mailboxes) anywhere near a multi-thousand dollar instrument for packing, I don't want to file a claim...I want it to arrive. I want it to survive that fall that Lane is talking about.....
The process I use is very much like Gregs above and has been. I have NEVER had an instrument damaged in shipment which this year has been 6 Pedal Steels...actually I use this process for just about everything I ship which is approx 300 UPS boxes per year..medium size and lite weight..I can can count the damaged boxes per year with 2 or 3 fingers....
_________________
Emmons L-II , Fender Telecasters, B-Benders , Eastman Mandolin ,
Pro Tools 12 on WIN 7 !
jobless- but not homeless- now retired 9 years
CURRENT MUSIC TRACKS AT > https://tprior2241.wixsite.com/website |
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 20 Jul 2014 5:25 am
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| In this case, I like the "meet in the middle" (in New Orleans) suggestion. |
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Bruce Derr
From:
Lee, New Hampshire, USA
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Posted 20 Jul 2014 8:36 am
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| I would never trust a UPS store to pack an instrument correctly. Some are very good and some are like the one that shipped a steel to me a few years ago. They told the seller that, since the steel case had a handle, it didn't need to be packed in a box! They actually RECOMMENDED that it not be boxed. Of course after a 2000-mile ground shipment it arrived damaged. Case split at the corners, interior board cracked, steel scratched. Fortunately it could have been much worse. (The seller felt terrible and offered to make it right, which I appreciated, but in this case it was less of a hassle to just repair the damage myself.) The takeaway for me was to always discuss packing and shipping with the seller ahead of time, and to never assume that the UPS store personnel know anything about packing. |
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David Mason
From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
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Posted 20 Jul 2014 8:53 pm
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"Never" is a long time. As mentioned, UPS stores are franchises. I live in a small town, I've known the owner (and chief packer) of the local UPS store for 15 years. Nice fellow, and after I showed him the inside packing that I do and talked to him about it, he took on the exterior packing. They have the tools and material to do a great job. First, you have to do everything to immobilize everything inside. Then, they have some cardboard "chunks" or blocks that can be used to reinforce all eight corners, then cardboard can be wrapped tightly around the outside of that. If you've ever gotten amps or TV's or something they uses specific hard foam corner protection all around, this is what the thick cardboard does. There's a guy in town who makes ultra-pricy hi-fi speaker cabinets, he's used this UPS guy for years and the two times there was a problem, there was no problem getting the settlement.
My point is that every UPS store is owned by a human, he does pay insurance against his own returns. He has a name... AND THEY'VE GOT MONEY to pay for the occasional & inevitable total forklift BUFU. And they have more than a vested interest in seeing that your packages get where they're going safely. Maybe I've just been in a small town for too long, but I can't imagine going to a store that specializes in shipping things that doesn't guarantee their own packing.
I have no reason to doubt that what Lane says is true, but your package is still in the custody of specific human beings at all times. I just think that if you walk into the place ready to declare war, you're a little more likely to get one. |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 21 Jul 2014 3:11 am
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David, I think many of the folks at UPS Stores/Kinko's have no idea about what happens to a non-conforming (the FXG term for packages that can't ride the belt) packages.
99% of the packages DO ride the belt system, which has been developed to provide high accuracy and low damage, and it's pretty good at that.
Here's what happens to a large amp or pedal steel (a Cube or 112 might actually ride the belt, I'm not sure what the cutoffs are) at a terminal or hub.
On arrival, the ICs get set in a marked-off square next to the dock door (the regular stuff just gets dropped on a belt that telescopes into the trailers and whisked away).
Then the Cushman driver comes around and horses them onto the dreaded carts. I'll reiterate: these things are of late-19th century design. Most of them have solid rubber tires (Lenexa has about 10% pneumatic tires), none have springs or shocks, and the lip is no more than about an inch high. They vibrate like hell, and bouncing off is not as uncommon as it should be (between 4 and 7% per trip).
The carts go to a place where people hand-sort them by destination, and put tags with the outbound door number on them, and the Cushman driver then takes them off to the outbound door and puts them in a marked-off box by the trailer door.
This procedure happens once at the local terminal, where it will likely go to a big regional hub (some trips will bypass hub handling: packages from the St. Louis terminal going to the Denver hub will often fill an entire trailer, so it will not get sorted in Kansas City/Lenexa, but just dropped by the regional driver and taken untouched to Denver. If there's a full trailer bound for a distant hub, they won't bother it). Then at the Hub this procedure gets repeated for sorting to the regional hub nearest the destination (again, it may bypass sorting at the destination hub, if the trailer is full: Chicago will often send trailers fully loaded for Seattle, so they won't get unloaded at Portland).
At the regional terminal, it will ride the carts a last pair of trips to the local truck and get loaded for the last ride to the other end.
I may suggest to QA that something be done to make the cart rides safer. I think 2 or 3" lips on the carts would go a LONG way to improve safety.
PS: a 4& likelihood over 8 trips (I forgot that hubs require two trips in the carts) looks to my eye (admittedly, I have NOT taken statistics, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were complexities in multiplying outcomes) like 32%, and the high end of 7% times 8 would be 56%.
PPS: If you follow a shipment and it shows multiple stops, it FAR more likely means that a trailer went via a relay route, as the package will get associated with the trailer, and the RFID tags register trailers arriving and departing hubs. So a trailer going from Orlando to Portland will likely show stops at Marietta, Kansas City, Denver and Salt Lake, but never touch a dock between Orlando and Portland.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects
Last edited by Lane Gray on 21 Jul 2014 6:35 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Dale Rottacker
From:
Walla Walla Washington, USA
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 21 Jul 2014 5:48 am
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If properly prepared, it'll be fine. And a misdelivery just sends it back to your local terminal.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Dale Rottacker
From:
Walla Walla Washington, USA
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 21 Jul 2014 6:30 am
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I never see the packages I haul, nice try (and If I saw Seibert, Colo on a package, it'd detour to Topeka for a few hours of "quality checks"). They assign me a trailer number and it's usually already closed and sealed.
I am convinced that the horror stories are due entirely to people not realizing the likely perils of the trip, and not properly packing. Greg's procedure is CERTAINLY adequate for a 2-foot fall.
I would also urge anyone shipping an amp block the transformers from tugging on the chassis (although that sounds like a huge PITA, if it drops, that lump of iron is gonna tug HARD on something).
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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