Looking for advice on shipping large/heavy woodturning equipment.
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Shipping large woodturning equipment
- Thread starter Dennis J Gooding
- Start date
This is not an endorsement, rather an idea to get you in the right direction.
www.freightbuddy.com
Find a freight shipper who can palletize/crate it for you and handle all the shipping logistics. Won't be cheap, but they can get it done. No such thing being too careful in how a machine is crated. Heavy cardboard gets punctured, a full plywood box may be a good idea. The machine should be bolted down onto the frame of the pallet, not just to the top slats of the pallet. Good luck!
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john lucas
AAW Forum Expert
I shipped a big lathe using Fastenal. You have to get the lathe to them. They pick it up and ship it to the main warehouse. Then when they have a truck going to the town you need it to go to they take ut there. The person has to go there to get it. Cost me 1/3 of what it would have cost any other way. Fortunately I had a way to get it to the Fastenal in my town and tge guy who bought it had a way to pick it up. I did build a custom crate for it. It was a massive old Oliver lathe. Weighed close to 900 lbs.
Uship is a service where you put out what you need shipped via freight and companies respond with quotes.
Dennis, this may be self evident, but you'll need to get it bolted to a sturdy pallet. At a minimum, build a frame around it with dimensional lumber. If you want to go whole-hog, enclose it in plywood or OSB. Your pallet needs to be where the driver can get to it with a pallet jack and into his truck without any steps or steep grades.
Be sure to insure it. When you use brokers, which is what most of the online services are, there are often three trucking companies involved. Company A does the local pick up and takes it to the terminal. Company B does the long-haul. Company C does the delivery. If there is damage, the other guy did it. That's when your insurance is important.
Be sure to insure it. When you use brokers, which is what most of the online services are, there are often three trucking companies involved. Company A does the local pick up and takes it to the terminal. Company B does the long-haul. Company C does the delivery. If there is damage, the other guy did it. That's when your insurance is important.
Roger Wiegand
Beta Tester
Depending on what it is and how valuable investing in a quality pallet and crating is your best insurance. I was going to cite the excellent crating job done when my Robust lathe was delivered to me, but then noticed who the previous post came from 
. Brent has way more experience than I do in this. You can't protect against someone dropping the whole thing, but a sturdy pallet and crate that makes it easy for the truckers to handle your item goes a long way.
. Brent has way more experience than I do in this. You can't protect against someone dropping the whole thing, but a sturdy pallet and crate that makes it easy for the truckers to handle your item goes a long way.
Most large things I’ve had delivered had been disassembled into smaller pieces (tables, legs, rails, and such removed). Some pieces came in separate boxes. When I bought the Woodmizer sawmill everything was disassembled but fastened to a couple of large, strong pallets. I had forks to unload otherwise there would have been an extra cost for a truck with a lift gate.
Some things were easier/cheaper delivered to a depot or business with a loading dock and I picked them up there. Fortunately, I have a truck and trailers.
Some things were easier/cheaper delivered to a depot or business with a loading dock and I picked them up there. Fortunately, I have a truck and trailers.