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Tiki Central / Other Crafts / Packaging Ceramics for Shipping

Post #651843 by swizzle on Thu, Sep 13, 2012 12:58 AM

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Good post Mike.

I haven't sent many mugs myself (maybe 6-10) but they all arrived in one piece. I actually just sent another 5 yesterday so we'll see if they get to their destinations OK. I happen to work in despatch at my job so i have access to various size boxes and plenty of bubble wrap.

We have a particular box we use that we buy in bulk and that is what i've been using for my mugs. It has about 1.5" clearance top and bottom, and about 2" on either side. I wrap the mug in a couple of layers of bubble wrap and then pack out the whole box with more bubble wrap so that there is no movement at all, as Henrik does also. If i have peanuts lying around i'll use those.

I sent back home two large boxes whilst i was in the U.S. just recently. Both around 20"x18"x18" and close to 30 pounds each. Everything was wrapped in a thick layer of bubble wrap and squeezed in tight. Because of the amount of things i sent there was't much room to put additional packing material around everything. Fortunately all the mugs arrived in one piece, the only thing that got damaged was the plastic frames on two of Doug Hornes drawings i bought. They had a thin layer of b/wrap around and because they were flat they were placed on the bottom of the box, but they probably should have been wrapped up with more. There was no damage to the artwork and thankfully the frames are easy to replace, unlike a collectible mug.

Both those boxes had 'fragile' stickers put on them but i've never used them on an individual mug. I really don't think that people pay attention to them anyway. With the amount of hands a package passes through before arriving at your home it only takes one to treat it rough to cause damage.

P.S. And don't use any of those plastic bags that are filled with air, they pop and become useless. An art gallery here who deals with a large and well known manufacturer has had several breakages occur because of those bags, even after requesting not to use them. One shipment had 11/15 mugs broken. That in a mug where there was only 150 mugs made in total. Yikes. Not good.

[ Edited by: swizzle 2016-03-08 20:08 ]