shipping guitars?

[rmd]

So, I need to ship three guitars - one acoustic in a soft case, one electric in a soft case, and one acoustic with no case. I assume if I go to the UPS store, they will charge me large sums of money and pack it and ship it. Any suggestions for something not too much more difficult that would be notably cheaper?

I don't think I have any boxes of sufficient size.

I also need to ship an electric keyboard, but that's not nearly so fragile.

Suggestions?

Comments

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

In a previous life I shipped quite a few guitars. Shipping guitars in a soft case is almost like shipping guitars with no case at all. No way should you trust the UPS Store folks to pack these properly! Most UPS Store folks I wouldn't trust to pack and ship a brick. Go to your local music store and see if they have guitar shipping boxes left over from any deliveries they've gotten. These will be boxes of the right shape, preferably with cardboard inserts to hold the body and neck securely centered in the box. The key things here are to have a decent amount of space between the sides of the box and the guitar, and to keep the guitar from moving inside the box. Lowering the string tension isn't a bad idea either. Also ship them via the speediest method you can afford so they spend the least time in transit. And insure them too. But remember that if something goes wrong, insurance is only worthwhile if you can demonstrate that the merchandise was properly packed for shipping. Any other questions on the subject, call me.

[solarbird]

Lowering the string tension isn't a bad idea either.
..and can be a very, very, very good idea, so do it always.

I agree with everything in this paragraph with one possible hack: as I recall, if UPS packs the items, the damage insurance is automatically good. So you might consider packing the guitars yourself in proper cases (As per sunspiral's directions) and then have UPS pack those boxes inside their boxes, to get the guarantee that the insurance counts.

It's gonna be spendy no matter how you do it, I'm afraid. Large, bulky, delicate - you don't ship that cheap.