Amp Shipping

From okric–(at)–ol.com Thu Aug 5 19:07:39 CDT 1999
From: okric–(at)–ol.com (OKRick)
Newsgroups: alt.guitar.amps
Subject: Re: UPS Horror Story!
X-Admin: new–(at)–ol.com
Date: 04 Aug 1999 16:23:17 GMT
Xref: geraldo.cc.utexas.edu alt.guitar.amps:194073

>it might be interesting to see the
>percentage of stuff that UPS delivers undamaged versus the stuff that
>arrives damaged or destroyed.

I don’t know what UPS’s casualty count is, but I have a mail order business and
over the past 4 years or so my damaged shipment ratio via UPS has been less
than 1% on shipments within US 48. I was having a great deal of trouble
shipping UPS into Canada. When my Canadian shipments exceeded 15% in damages I
ceased shipping into Canada. This was a few years back and I don’t know if any
improvements have been made since. Unfortunately, to keep damages minimal I
have to invest about as much in proper packing materials as I do in shipping
charges.

The larger, heavier and more cumbersome packages by far receive the most abuse,
and of course amps fall well into this category. Double boxing and lots of
bubble wrap seem to be the ticket on shipping amps. A method that seems to be
working well on amps is to first get a piece of heavy corrugated cardboard
large enough to wrap completely over the amp (front, top, back and bottom) and
a little wider. Take this and wrap the amp and tape tightly. This piece does
a good job of protecting grill cloth and faceplate and the overhang protects
the corners. Then get a double corrugated 250# rated box made in dimensions at
least 6″ larger than the amp and pack tightly with heavy duty bubble wrap on
all sides. This method is expensive, but seems to be adequate. Also, if you
are shipping a very heavy combo, say a twin, you may want to consider removing
the chassis and shipping it separately to lighten the packages, if the
recipient has the expertise to reassemble the amp. The lighter the package,
the better the chance it will be handled in a more friendly manner. Newspaper
is not acceptable padding for heavy items. No matter how tightly you stuff
newspaper it will always pack down as the package gets handled.

Another cool trick I’ve seen when shipping a pair of speakers is to take the
speakers and place them face to face and run heavy duty zip ties through the
mounting holes to firmly attach the speakers together, face to face to protect
the cones.

Oh, one more thing I should mention reguarding amps covered in lacquered tweed.
When wrapping a lacquered tweed amp in bubble wrap, always put the smooth side
against the tweed, bubbles out. It seems that some manufacturers of bubble
wrap use a mold release agent on the bubble side (silicone?) that lacquer
doesn’t like. It can cause spotting where the bubbles make contact with the
tweed.
OKRic–(at)–OL.com

From me–(at)–ru.com Thu Aug 5 19:08:23 CDT 1999
From: Miles O’Neal
MIME-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: alt.guitar.amps
Subject: Re: UPS Horror Story!
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 17:25:39 GMT
Xref: geraldo.cc.utexas.edu alt.guitar.amps:194274

OKRick said…

> Another cool trick I’ve seen when shipping a pair of speakers is to take the
> speakers and place them face to face and run heavy duty zip ties through the
> mounting holes to firmly attach the speakers together, face to face to protect
> the cones.

If you ship speakers in the same package with something else, make sure
they are safe from the packing material! I received two speakers and an
amp a while back – the box had been dropped, and the wight of the amp
chassis forced three inches of bubble pack through one 40+ year old
speaker cone. (The other party insisted on reimbursing me for that
speaker, BTW.) This could have happened without the amp, though, if
a heavy package had landed on top of the speaker package.

I prefer to wrap each speaker in a heavy piece of cardboard, then pack
that in bubbles and/or peanuts. Or popcorn.

-Miles