Thread: shipping my heavy ten Bed by UPS

I'm getting the bed ground and if it weighs ~ #125 I can ship it UPS.

It's a 36" bed from the 1960's.

Before I try and weigh this thing, has anybody weighed and shipped their bed?

thanks

The grinding shop should get better rates than you, ask them to pick and deliver.

You don't want UPS to ship it, they will put it on a series of conveyor belts, they will put boxes of 4 foot flourescent bulbs on conveyor belts, and it is not a good thing.

build a plywood box with runners
You've made the decision to send it out for grinding, don't loose it to lightweight packaging.
you'll probably add at the most 50 lbs in material, but there's nothing worse than receiving a call that starts with " We just recived...uhhh.....both pieces of your bed"
I've had to make those kind of calls to shops that don't prepare machinery correctly for shipment.
Mike

UPS will charge more for wooden crates, check it out.

I would only ship using a common carrier where they use a fork truck to pick it up.
Would you want to take the chance with someone dropping the bed while it rolls along the conveyor, evan if pkgd in a wooden crate?

I have also found that while you understand the value of a nice crate, the vendor may toss it, to free up space, and ship back in a marginal cardboard box.

RaceTech did that to me, when I shipped them some motorcycle forks for work.

I had a nice plastic pipe shipping tube with wooden plugs, and they returned the forks in a cardboard box that barely made it back.

You might want to ask if the vendor intends to reuse your shipping container. If the person says yes, GET THEIR NAME, AND PHONE EXTENSION AND THEIR SUPERVISOR'S NAME.

The world is full of cowards and liars, and some of them work in Customer Service.

re a vendor using your crate for return shipment:
include on the packing slip and your confirmation of the order that the crate is to be reused or an equal supplied.
I usually fax or email a copy of the packing slip to my vendors before it ships when dealing with special crates.
that way the receiver dosn't destroy when unpacking
if you use screws for the lid/top so that its clear how to take it apart, chances are good you won't have any problems.

Rob,

Just a thought. If the bed is worn that bad, then the saddle and tail stock are also worn even more. The bed is semi-steel 50/50. The saddle and tail stock are cast iron. Did you check them also. They can be repaired and hand scraped at a cost.

ED S

I had a rifle barrel sent back to me after some work...the end was sticking out of the box, I was
lucky it did not get bent or lost.....

FWIW--mine, also 36" is 115#
chaz

FWIW,
Edkolt is 100% correct. But your only doing less than half the job without properly refitting both the carriage and tail stock. Then you'll need to deal with the cross and top slide wear and alignments. One way or another your going to spend a great deal of time if you can do the work, or money to pay someone who IS highly qualified to do it.

And I used to work in the shipping business. To make this less than 10 pages long, your shipping crate needs to be 3" thick armor plate if your at all worried about what you'll get back. High priority freight employees aren't exactly concerned about just how delicate any item is. Their paid to get that freight moved as fast as possible. Whatever it cost or was involved? I'd highly recommend doing the transport yourself if at all possible. Freight insurance for the full replacement cost for each direction isn't optional either if you can't do that transport yourself. Even with that insurance, it's normally a real bitch to get a claim settled to your satisfaction.

I'll also admit it's a bit expensive at just about $100, but I can't recommend buying a copy of the Connelley book Machine Tool Reconditioning highly enough. You do need to know a certain amount about this just to judge what needs to be done and just how to test the work after you've spent that money. Until I read mine I really didn't realize what's actually involved.

Pete