Been shipping, and receiving large (up to 8') sailplane/power plan boxes to as far away as Singapore New Zealand, Germany. Dmage can and will occur from time to time. I have been lucky so far. It is important to wrap card boar in Luan for Air freight international shipping, and UPS where you can. More importantly, don't use just peanuts and newspaper inside, this allows shifting, and provides no support, Make a box or boxes inside a box with extremely fragile stuff, use ply, foam, hot glue and make partitions using foam board or sheets of foam. blocks of foam glued to theinside of the box works also. the safest and quickest, and sometimes least expensive way to ship large boxes is Emory Worldwide or similar air freight. 4 days anywhere in the world and a large box is usualy $130 to 200 dollars. UPS ground is the worst, pack very well in this case. A box with 1/4" ply ends is a good idea as well. Keep things back from the end of box if possible I recently shipped a 1/3 scale biplane from NY to Calif. It was extremely fragile and of balsa and light ply construction.Two swept back wings 87" long. The box contained airframe, large gas motor, and radio. Using the above ideas, there was no damage. often long boxes are stood on end in a truck, pack for that scenario also. John D. -----Original Message----- From: Tom Broeski [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, December 17, 1999 3:17 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [RCSE] USPS <50% shipping John, In an earlier post someone warned about putting a "fragile" sign on the box. It only draws attention to the box and incurs the wrath of the disgruntled employees. The rule of thumb (or foot) is that a box must withstand being on the bottom of a pile of other boxes with a weight of 200+ pounds. The larger the box, the more likely it will be on the bottom of the pile. Imagine someone shipping 20 starter motors and they all get placed on top of your box - in the center - in one tall pile. Then someone drops one of the motors and the corner hits your box from a height of 4 feet. If it survives, you have a strong enough box - everything else is just luck. They do pay their insurance claims a lot quicker than the post office. John Jenks wrote: > Well the USPS broke both planes. These were the packages that were > 1/4" luan plywood covered in cardboard 80" long (spent an entire > Saturday making the boxes). The planes were in perfect condition on > departure and somehow one wing and both tails were broken. Actually one > tail only had a puncture wound. I packed the planes as best I could > using 100% peanuts in one and peanuts and packing paper in the other. > The one with the peanuts and packing paper is the one with the broken > wing and crushed tail. This is also the one with the "Extremely > Fragile" sign on it. I think the person who suggested cardboard > supported with blue foam is probably right on target. I 'm done sending > planes. > > RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Tom Broeski -- Afton, VA T&G Exhibits (Exhibit and Prototype Design) http://www.adesigner.com T&G Hobbies (Home of the "Quote") http://www.adesigner.com/hobbies.htm BRASS (Blue Ridge Area Soaring Society) http://www.adesigner.com/brass.htm BRIC (Blue Ridge Inventors' Club) http://www.inventorclub.org 540 943-3356 RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
