(OT) Show me your speaker mailing boxing techniques

[VolvoHeretic]

I need to box up two woofers for a trip to GPA. I found some 18"x18" cardboard boxes at Wall Mart that I can shorten to size, but should I build two boxes or put both speakers into one? Build it out os OSB board with handles and wheels?

How have you guys packed yours? I saw all of those UPS hidden videos on the news last Christmas and want them to survive the trips.

[timoteus]

I would just follow their packing instructions .pdf as close as possible. http://www.greatplainsaudio.com/packing_info.pdf

That's what I did, and apparently I did a good enough job they reused my shipping boxes on return. I wouldn't stack the woofers just to save a couple dollars. Just one woofer per box.

Screw the wrapped woofer face down to a piece of plywood and make the top pad with cutout like they describe, cut down the box and that's about it. If you want to go the extra mile I would recommend making corner blocks for the box so if they stack too much weight on it during transit or someone sits on the box, the corner blocks take the weight and not the magnet or spider.

[Audio_by_Goodwill]

I like to double box sensitive items. The cone side of a woofer would recieve some sort of extra material...... could be a couple layers of cardboard, a sheet of foam, or I've had one shipped to me, with a piece of plywood. I use something to lift the inner box off of the floor of the outter box. I've used assemebled flat boxes before...... chunks of foam surrounded with wadded paper would work, even Styrofoam peanuts would work. Ideally, the inner box sholdn't just fit in the outter box.... it should have a void all around it, that get's filled with some sort of packing. I've done a hard outer layer on the inside of the outerbox, with something that compress's in between the two boxes. You don't want thinks moving around inside, but you can't make everything super rigid or any outside forces will simply be transmitted to the inside.

I'll see if I've got some pictures later on.

[timoteus]

This is a picture of a spare 416 I'm storing in one of the boxes I sent and had returned from GPA. I skipped the double boxing part because there is plenty of airspace around the woofer. They went 1500 miles twice and came back in perfect condition. All the extra stufffing and packing material is unecessary in my opinion because that's used to keep contents from shifting. If the woofer is screwed down to the bottom board it can't shift.

[Alien_Shore]

some original product doc also has packing method shown,
e.g., JBL E145

[tomt]

I like to double box sensitive items.

a wise idea, for sure.

even Styrofoam peanuts would work.

might be better to use sheets.

please don't ask how i know ...

[Audio_by_Goodwill]

might be better to use sheets.

please don't ask how i know ...

Peanuts work fine, you just have to pack them tightly, and can't be shipping something as heavy as an anvil. I also use sheet foam, depending on exactly what I'm trying to accomplish.

[Audio_by_Goodwill]

Here are my pictures from when I sent a Jensen P10R to Germany.

[bowtie427ss]

I really despise packing peanuts. They're the most misused packing material on the planet, and were never intended to "cushion" solid objects in a package. Their original intent was simply as a space filler in packages where the item has already been cushioned via other means.

That said, if you save all your plastic bags from the grocery store, you can make some fairly acceptable packing cushions by filling the bags about 1/3 of the way with peanuts and tying them, then wrap the remaining bag around itself and tie it again. This will prevent most of the settling and shifting that occurs with loose peanuts, make somebody's un-packing experience a lot more pleasant, and gets rid of all those damndable bags and peanuts you seem to be accumulating.

Personally, i'd like to stuff the guy who invented "packing peanuts" full of them to the bursting point.

ABGW, your packing pics above....................... I'd have no worries about anything you were going to ship me.

Other board members whom i have purchased from in the past have all packed quite adequately too.

[bowtie427ss]

I don't think i've saved too many speaker packing pics, i can't find em.

But, i found pics of the VPI Scout i shipped coast to coast last fall. No double boxing necessary for domestic shipping, i'd have doubled it for international though.

The magic marker "X's" are relative to explicit un-packing instructions. The recipient was quite pleased.