We have picked up, crated and packed some pretty large heavy and awkward items over the years including this metal transformer. If you are a movie buff you would recognize this as Bumblebee, at 8 ft high and weighing over 1,000 lbs he needed to be moved from a basement movie theater and shipped to be shown at a Trade Show in Texas.
This would have been a much easier job if he could have just transformed into a Camaro and drove himself to the Expo, but in the logistics world not much is that easy. He did disassemble into a few pieces, the largest and heaviest being a leg-torso fitting that was close to 300 lbs. After having four guys get the pieces up a staircase we got Bumblebee back to the warehouse and custom crated him and shipped him off to the show.
Once in our warehouse, handling, packing and crating was easy. The logistics of picking these types of items up or delivering them is the difficult part.
Some items we crate, pack and ship are not heavy but just LARGE. Try a 23 foot long airplane wing. The crate the wing shipped in was 4 times heavier than the wing itself. Most of the larger items we crate and palletize are from the Aerospace industry. Here is pallet of wing tips blocked and braced for shipping.
These Wing Tips don't weigh much but are rather large. Palletizing these, strapping them down and blocking and bracing, prevents them from moving around in the back of a truck and getting dented, banged up or damaged.
Besides the items we pack and ship for companies in the Aerospace industry that are large and sometimes awkward but do not weigh a lot, it seems packing large and heavy items are associated with keeping items cold. This 800 lb refrigerated grocer display case was not fun. In fact it took 8 men to perform the pickup for this.
The logistics for pickup were complicated by the fact that the store had built a stone wall and counter in front of this display case, the only way to get this display out of the store was to lift it up and over the counter.
Once back into the Gateway warehouse this item was easy to pack up and safely ship to a new grocery store in Oregon.
Gateway Crate and Freight takes great pride in our work. Safely and securely packing large awkward and sometimes Fragile items (notice in the picture above that this display case has glass for the side walls) is what we do best. Proper packing, blocking and bracing is required to ensure this large piece does not twist or bend or come off its shipping platform.
Our custom platform bases are designed with the right materials to ensure the items we pack are safe and secure no matter how large, awkward or fragile an item may be. Further illustration that things that keep items cold are big and heavy is the large refrigerators we ship that weigh 700 lbs or more.
The key to safely shipping these larger refrigerators is to keep them upright through proper blocking and bracing when palletizing.
All the insides in this refrigerator like the shelves and drawers are secured with foam sheeting and tape. The fridge is wrapped, custom boxed and then palletized. these are front heavy so the load pressure from forklift or transportation equipment is from the side. We design a 2 way only pallet to prevent pressure on the front.
The final packed product looks like this.
Proper wood bracing and foam support in the right places help ensure these large items can be shipped without damage. Successfully shipping large, awkward and heavy items really does come down to the packaging.
Gateway Crate and Freight designs full wood crate boxes as well as slat crates and palletized blocking, bracing and banding services to get the job done. For Large fragile items that contain a lot of glass, foam protection is required to ensure minimal vibration. Some of the large china hutches or glass display armoires we have packed over the years have been pretty fragile but we have been successful at packing and crating these items, with the right materials.
Here is an armoire taped, wrapped, and foam protected going into a full wood crate for shipping L.T.L Freight.
Shipping Large, Heavy and or Awkward pieces isn't difficult, we do it all the time, but it does take the right equipment, materials and a logistics game plan to successfully move and ship these types of pieces. The right crate, pallet base and proper packing, blocking and bracing will make all the difference in the world. Call the professionals at Gateway Crate and Freight if you need help getting these types of items from Point A to Point B.
Gateway Crate and Freight and Gateway Optimum Transportation is a 3PL Located in Tempe, Arizona and actually performs the "work" to make shipping successful. Visit www.gatewaycrateandfreight.com or www.gatewayot.com for more info call Toll Free 855-474-4685
Comments
Post a Comment