transporting prints

a few months ago i sent a couple of framed prints interstate by courier. they were imho well packaged in 3 layers of bubblewrap, a couple of layers of corrugated cardboard and enough tape to satiate the most dedicated mummification freak. needless to say both frames were smashed..... oh well, i was warned......

last week i airmailed some prints to the US for exhibition in a tube, quite a heavy duty carboard tube, certainly a lot stronger than those sold by the post office. the tube turned up at it's destination squashed flat and the pictures were stuffed.... and i'm out of the gig.....

what do i do? taking an axe to the post office front counter most probably won't help even if it does make me feel better for a while. Couriers are expensive and don't seem to be much more reliable than the post office.... what am i gonna do in the future? they weren't insured btw.... silly, silly me

wayne

After some "experience", I began building wooden crates for shipping my wife's paintings all over the US. Cardboard, regardless of tape and bubble wrap, just didn't do it. Anything properly - and I mean properly!!! - crated stands a better chance.

We also learned that using acrylic, rather than glass, not only saved weight, but lessoned the danger as well.

Just my own opinion.

Oh, and buy insurance.

wooden crates and insurance would blow me out of the water costwise..... <grin>

Good strong tubes work very well, but the ones at the post office are far to thin, and its hard to find decent ones.

Carpet is usually stored and sold wound around a very strong cardboard tube, about 1/4" wall thickness, carpet stores throw them out, you need a saw to cut them. These are extremely difficult to crush.

Ian

Airfloat Systems

Wayne,

Try AirFloat Systems Dead Link Removed. Their products aren't necessarily cheap, but they're reusable and work well. We ship a lot of framed prints around the US using FedEx, and the acrylic/plexiglass option that David mentioned is really the method to use.

For single framed prints that will be in a group show and where they'll be returned, I sometimes use the shipping cases from Light Impressions. Again, not cheap but for the effort that goes into making the print and framing it, it's worthwhile. For those prints that are sold and where I wouldn't get the case back, we use tubes from Uline http://www.uline.com/ or the heavy tubes sold at Home Depot that are used for concrete footings. Not pretty but they work. http://www.quikrete.com/ProductLines/QuikTubeBuildingForm.asp

Keith.

thanks for the tips, folks, much appreciated.....

wayne

Wood crates with framed prints, anything else is just asking for damage.

I agree with Curt on this. 1/4 inch plywood over a 1X2 frame.

hmmmm, it would be an interesting challenge for me, making wooden boxes that is... you're talking someone who was kicked out of woodwork classes in junior school fo gross incompetence..... <g>

My company ships hundreds of frames every week. Our damage rate is very low, but it is not zero and it will never be zero even if you crate them. A crate, although it will get rid of the vast majority of damage issues, will not stop a forklift blade or keep it from being completely lost. Zero damage/loss rate is not possible.

So what to do? Make sure it covered with proper insurance and ship with enough time spare time to ship again.

Now, aside from being ready for the worst here are some tips on how to help keep the worst from happening:

Express shipments such as 2nd day air are handled less and treated a little more carefully than ground shipments. For prints alone, the safest and most economical is tubes. Although yours was crushed, that is rare. Acrylic is MUCH safer than glass. We only have acrylic damaged about once a year (and I am not sure how they manage to do it). When shipping glass make sure it is a few inches from all 6 sides of the box, the glass can not be allowed to flex, bind or vibrate against other items in the box. As already mentioned, crating is good, although expensive, for two reasons. The obvious reason is that is strong, the less obvious reason is that it is harder to throw although depending on its size it can possibly still be pushed out of the back of a truck. When we ship large glass we only do so for large frame orders so we can put it on a pallet and ship it freight. A heavy pallet is being moved by pallet mover instead of being thrown. When we pack frames we place something between them such as foam or cardboard and use stretch film to secure them tightly to each other. The box will be vibrated and shaken for many hours so you want to make sure that the contents of the box do not damage each other. We take the resulting stack and wrap it with 1/2 bubble on all 6 sides. We then place this in a box that is couple inches larger on all 4 of the smaller or edge sides. We fill the remaining space with bubble, craft paper, or cardboard. What is used for void fill is not critical. It is critical that the void fill not compress overtime allowing the contents to start slamming around in the box. It is also critical that the contents cant shift around the void fill and get next to the edge of the box. For that reason we do not use peanuts.

Many thanks Mark....

wayne

Wayne, I just remembered the SAFEST way to ship prints and it is economical! Rolled up in PVC tubing. Lightweight and nearly indestructible.

Cheers,
Mark

wayne naughton said:

Many thanks Mark....

wayne

Click to expand...

Now with all this modern "Track&Trace" postal systems, where it is practically known for each minute where and who handles the postal packages, maybe it's time for something like "Pay per Break"...:

Pay-out salary according to the amount of damaged post a postal officer delivers... Next time a postal officer sees his salary drop to zero, maybe he will think twice about throwing about our costly prints...

It's very much a mentality issue. Each time I see these supermarket youngsters turning a box of perfectly good apples into something close to applesauce, I really wonder what's going on in their heads Do *they* want to buy a mashed apple rotting with fruitflies for their lunch break???

Oh well, maybe they use the fruitfly larvae for their fishing trips... I doubt if their diet even contains anything else than fried food... Maybe they even think that apples consist of plastic and are "Made in China"...

Marco

if you can find anybody that's accountable for anything these days, you're doing well..... <G>

w

fdi said:

Wayne, I just remembered the SAFEST way to ship prints and it is economical! Rolled up in PVC tubing. Lightweight and nearly indestructible.

Cheers,
Mark

Click to expand...

i was wondering about pvc piping... i suppose it wouldn't upset the bomb squad or any security types?

w

Dont think so..Company I buy spacers from ships them in 5ft long 3 inch wide blue tubes.