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Packed My First Turntable Today

elcoholic

elcoholic

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I shipped my newly acquired Dual 1019 off to Bill at fixmydual.com today. Having not done this before I errored on the over protective side (I hope).

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That's the svelt 7# platter wrapped in nuclear grade bubble wrap, aka. 10 mil solar pool cover trimming.

More pics here https://picasaweb.google.com/teamo65/Dual1019?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCM-Ds-eM6-ziPA&feat=directlink

Double boxed and shipping weight came in at 26.2 lbs. Hope it makes it OK.
 
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I am sure you did a good job. :)

The first table I packed was for a friend who sold a Thorens TD-124 for about $1400. We shipped it from Vancouver to the eastern US somewhere and it arrived as good as it left. I did sweat over that one a bit.
 
Thanks Montycat, I'm sweatin it some myself. I've seen some real horror stories on these boards.
 
Looks good to me! I think everyone should take pride and effort when they pack any gear, especially vintage, since if they get damaged that's one less piece available and they ain't making them anymore. There is no such thing as over packing!

Should of seen the packing job I did for canuckaudiog, probably a couple hours for each box and lots of tape!

Just make sure when you finally tape the top is to shake box to make sure nothing shifts inside to make sure everything is secure.
 
elcoholic said:
Thanks Montycat, I'm sweatin it some myself. I've seen some real horror stories on these boards.
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Yeah, I agree with Montycat. Turntables are easier to pack/ship if it's done right. Separately-wrapping that heavy 7.5lb platter helps a lot to spread out the weight so it doesn't clunk around inside the box.

But I'll never ship a receiver or amp ever again if I can help it. Back when I bought my Sansui 2000x (which was in beautiful shape) off of Ebay, I emailed the seller to I was blue in the fingers about how I just want to make sure it gets here intact (I was gracious about it, and I even offered to pay more money just to be on the safe side), but the seller assured me it would be packed very-well and double-boxed. And yet, sure enough, the package arrived with a big forklift punch right through the side of BOTH boxes. Luckily, it happened on the back side of the receiver, so only 2 speaker terminals and one fuse-holder were damaged, which I stole from my 4000 just to make sure it was still operational, so everything kinda' worked out, but it was only by sheer luck.

You're gonna' enjoy that table. I just ordered a Jico SAS stylus to use with a Shure M91ED on mine. I like how dynamic and punchy that table can be. It's definitely full of that idler-charm.
 
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I'm sure if a forklift's fork (?), punched into anything it would get damaged, heavy duty packing or not! Lots of mass behind those machines.
 
mythless said:
I'm sure if a forklift's fork (?), punched into anything it would get damaged, heavy duty packing or not! Lots of mass behind those machines.
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Oh, absolutely. But I guess that's my point about packing audio gear. Pack "as if". Pack as if it's gonna' take a spill out the back of the truck. Pack as if the Samsonite gorilla was gonna' be loading/unloading it". Pack "as if". :scratch2:
 
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Gang-Twanger said:
Oh, absolutely. But I guess that's my point about packing audio gear. Pack "as if". Pack as if it's gonna' take a spill out the back of the truck. Pack as if the Samsonite gorilla was gonna' be loading/unloading it". Pack "as if". :scratch2:
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Very true that's always good advice.
 
We did have the luxury of a metal box that we could pack the 124 in, but I did have to to cut a lot of custom foam. Because of the box's shape the table was not able to go in it flat but it sure could not move at all when I was done. I don't know about forklifts but it was packed to survive a lot.
 
Montycat said:
We did have the luxury of a metal box that we could pack the 124 in, but I did have to to cut a lot of custom foam. Because of the box's shape the table was not able to go in it flat but it sure could not move at all when I was done. I don't know about forklifts but it was packed to survive a lot.
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That's a really-good idea actually. It's the same as how the pros ship vintage tube amps. They actually build a wooden-frame around it that kind of acts like a roll-bar on all sides and keeps it in place, and then THAT gets put inside a 6-sided wooden crate.

I wish all Fleabayers packed like that... Make us pay extra for it if you want, but just get the thing here in one piece, ya' know? But most online sellers don't put much thought into it. They THINK they do, but it's just not enough to insure a safe arrival.
 
Just a suggestion, in the photo I beleive I see folded cardboard used between the inner and outer boxes. I'v used sheets of styrafoam and built walls top/bottom/all sides between the boxes. A layer of thin plywood might help in preventing puncturing the box but protecting against a forklift is pretty tough.
 
Elco, looks like a nice packing job. The only thing I do differently is to place the heavy platter on the bottom over an extra cardboard piece and styrofoam liner, bubblewrapped, and then covered by the same - then the table over that with reinforcement under the base if needed. Keeps the CG low and doesn't allow the platter any opportunity at the dust cover if there is one or the tonearm.

Gang-Twanger said:
Oh, absolutely. But I guess that's my point about packing audio gear. Pack "as if". Pack as if it's gonna' take a spill out the back of the truck. Pack as if the Samsonite gorilla was gonna' be loading/unloading it". Pack "as if". :scratch2:
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Sounds like we may need to line the sides of some boxes with spare rack mount panels as armor - I'm not kidding, sometimes you just can't be too safe. Extra weight will be a cost issue though. Maybe 1/4 or 3/8 inch plywood to deflect all but the forkiest of fork lifts? At least the package might get bounced off instead of pierced through.
 
The folded cardboard are just spacers for the platter within the inner box. I didn't take any pics but what I did between the boxes was lay down a 2" layer of peanuts in the bottom, protect the inner box corners and sides with 2 thickness of folded cardboard and foam rubber, and then used more layers of cardboard and the rest of the nuclear grade bubble wrap on top. Pretty much exhausted my supply of packing materials. Good idea, the styrofoam.
 
Not a big fan of foam peants, they tend to shift and IMO offer minimal protection to anything that is heavy.
 
That packing looks scary with cardboard pieces as reinforcement.
I would use thick styrofoam panels on all sides + bottom then a seperate
box for the turn-table.
 

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mech986 said:
Elco, looks like a nice packing job. The only thing I do differently is to place the heavy platter on the bottom over an extra cardboard piece and styrofoam liner, bubblewrapped, and then covered by the same - then the table over that with reinforcement under the base if needed. Keeps the CG low and doesn't allow the platter any opportunity at the dust cover if there is one or the tonearm.
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Pretty much what I did (except for the styrofoam layer), I should have taken more/better pics. What's shown in the picture above is the platter upside down in the pool cover bubble wrap. This stuff is very tough, it doesn't pop it's from a TOTL 5 year solar cover. The folded card board is used to locate it. The turntable was placed on top and located there with more rolled pool cover off-cuts. It does seem the concensus is to use solid styrofoam, so that's probably what I'll do next time.
 
Is there an issue with the platter that needs serviced? Bill told me not to send the platter when I had him restore two of my Duals. He also told me not to ship the base/plinth or counterbalance weight either.
 
Now I'm second guessing myself. I don't recall about the platter. I know he said to remove it, but I can't recall if he said not to send it. Since my 1019 is in a console I think I got the plinth part right :)
 
elcoholic said:
Now I'm second guessing myself. I don't recall about the platter. I know he said to remove it, but I can't recall if he said not to send it. Since my 1019 is in a console I think I got the plinth part right :)
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Don't sweat it, its already on its way. If he doesn't need it, he'll just toss it and send the rest back to you :D

I'm sure it will be fine!
 
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