Posting Cabs - packaging?

[burno70]

I'm looking to post a couple of my cabs and am wondering if anyone has any tips on packaging - what to get and where to buy?

I'm selling a 2*10 and a 1*15 and likely posting via a courier.

My initial thoughts are bubble wrapping them to death but I'm not sure. Never posted a cab before.

Anyone got any tips?

[Lozz196]

Never sent any cabs, but had a couple delivered, and usually they`ve been in a box, with bubble-wrap/padding, and then that box placed into an outer box, with extra card placed between the two.

Contact your local music shop, see if they can let you have any boxes from recent deliveries.

[Mr. Foxen]

Make the handles accessible, and it will get treated a bunch better because it is easy to move.

[Musicman20]

Double box them.

I sent two Aguilar DB212s to Higgie (he arranged the courier) and I used the original boxes.

[Conan]

Double box. If possible, make the outer box quite a bit larger and pack the space in between them with bubble wrap or those "cheesey wotsit" type packaging blebs... Use the thickest cardboard you can find and plenty of it!. I'm sure the advice about making the handles accessible makes sense, but I'm not sure how you could actually do that and still package it securely.... Swings and roundabouts maybe.

[burno70]

Thanks for the above. I don't have the original boxes but will pop into local music shop on saturday and see if they have anything spare.

[Grand Wazoo]

If you go to a music shop you can ask them for those polistyrene corner castings that they use inside the boxes to ship amps with, or make yorself some. Or as Gareth said smaller box inside bigger box but get a can of expanding foam (weighs next to nothing when settled) and seal the gaps

[yorick]

Failing music shops, try self storage places. If you don't mind paying for the boxes, they quite often sell decent quality boxes in varying sizes.

[lemmywinks]

Also ask at local businesses for decent boxes. I reckon almost every business has an excess of cardboard boxes they throw away and would be only too happy to give you.

As said previously, double box with lots of bubble wrap in the inner box and thick layers of offcut card in the outer box. Make sure there are arrows drawn on the box pointing upwards (so it dowsn't get dropped with the speaker facing down) and it should be ok.

However if a courier really wants to throw a box around and damage it then there's not much that can be done, it's always a risk. Just make sure you take out insurance for the full amount (new price) as it's not worth skimping on that, trust me!

[alexclaber]

Bubblewrap only works in addition to double layers of cardboard and I'd still want more protection at the corners. You want two layers of good corrugated cardboard everywhere (either double-boxed or a box with cardboard offcuts in between cab and box, plus extra protection at the corners - we use quite hard expanded polystyrene comers but a DIY approach is to make packing corners out of corrugated cardboard with a bit of origami. Assume that it'll get dropped out of the back of a truck and pack it so it can survive that! It's not so much that the couriers 'want' to chuck stuff around, it's just the normal mode of behaviour - you should see all these parcels labelled 'fragile' getting tossed to the back of the FedEx van to clear space when our parcels are collected...

[burno70]

And here's me thinking a bit of bubblewrap and a bin bag should do the job!

[Dood]

I once received a bass wrapped in one sheet of bubble wrap and a bin bag, no case!!! On another occasion I received a bass cabinet squeezed in to a single skin cardboard box. Both were delivered by courier.

I am truly amazed that they arrived in one piece as these are truly two examples on how not to send items in the post!

A good guide for how much packaging you actually need, is to take in to consideration the amount of packaging and support you might get in the box of say a microwave oven, laptop or for bigger items, TV.

[ShergoldSnickers]

I usually apply Gaffa (or even better fumps' Jaffa tape) tape along all edges, corners and seams of the outer cardboard box, to stop the cardboard getting ripped at the places most vulnerable.