Shipping used machinery

[Dan Chouinard]

I have been spending a fair bit of time looking for used machinery. In particular a 20-24" planer and a sliding table saw. Wondering what tips you folks may have for shipping such items
should I strike gold.
Thanks

[Matt Day]

There was a thread on this a few days ago. Search for it, and the other shipping threads that there have been.

[David Kumm]

I prefer point to point. Open flat bed, shrinkwrapped inside a crate or at least tarped inside and again outside over the crate. If crating isn't an option, shrinkwrap beats tarps. I've never seen a hauler with tarps that didn't have holes in bad places. Dave

[andy bessette]

Fastenal does very affordable third-party shipping between their stores; drop off and pickup at their store. On a palletized machine, make sure the stores you plan to use have a forklift. I shipped an 8" PM jointer coast-to-coast for ~$200.

[Dan Chouinard]

Thanks for the thoughts guys.
I must be using search feature wrong because I seldom get good results.
Define point to point please David.

[Alex Zeller]

As someone who's been looking for pieces to fill in gaps for several years now my advice is to stick to what's in your driving range. Shipping will quickly add to the costs. With new equipment the seller will most likely take care of damage. When buying used you take the risk. I personally believe that if a LTL shipper who specialized in packaging stuff, residential deliveries, and protecting shipped goods came into being they would do well. Most of the shippers I have dealt with seam to feel that it would take a nuclear blast to damage something. With so much to go wrong it kind of makes the price of the equipment low. With so many people always looking it makes great deals almost impossible. Exceptions would be if you know the seller and that they are the ones who will crate it correctly.

The more expensive the equipment the less of an impact shipping cost will be. But it makes the protecting and crating portion even more critical. It can be done but there's a risk. Last month there was a thread about someone who had the shipper drop the crate while trying to offload it from the truck. The driver just shrugged his shoulders and drove off leaving the broken crate in the middle of his driveway. I'm not trying to scare you, just making sure you understand that shipping freight isn't like shipping a small box with UPS.

[John Grossbohlin]

... Most of the shippers I have dealt with seam to feel that it would take a nuclear blast to damage something.

We must have used the same companies... I had two DJ-20 jointers show up damaged. The first one had pieces of broken cast iron fall out of the crate as it was being unloaded. The second had a broken fence as viewed through the damaged crate (and who knows what else as I refused delivery). In both cases it was clear that fork lifts had impaled the crates. Another time I had a Weil-Mclain lowboy furnace show up that had been dropped so hard that the partitions were all buckled. It was deformed so badly that I couldn't remove the access panels from either the blower or burner ends. It took talking to Weil-Mclain directly to get any action as the retailer and distributor refused to do anything despite it being handled by their trucks... Needless to say, even though they were only a mile away, I bought the rest of the materials for a whole house gut-job renovation, and many other projects, from their competitor (both are independents, not big box). The sheet metal dust chute on my thickness planner was bent... You get the idea...

Things are worse now as all the local vendors are gone from the area... industrial supplies, woodworking stores, "real" hardware stores, even all the department stores that sold tools are gone. Now there are Home Depot, Lowe's and True Value stores in their place... In more recent years there was one independent about 15 miles away who had some shop tools in stock. However, with Delta imploding that dried up too.

[Albert Lee]

I have considered buying used. but unless I go FCL. I wont do it due to the risk of machine being damaged if using LCL

going with full container, FCL, you reduce the risk of machine being damaged..

otherwise you have to pay someone to hoard up the machine with thick plywood even that wont stop it from being damaged.

[Joe Jensen]

I'm with David. Point to Point is not that much more in my experience and the damage happens in loading, unloading, and in the transfer warehouses. Spend 5 min in one of those transfer warehouses watching forklifts running 20MPH with loads and you can see why bad things happen. Safest way is to hire a point to point truck. The require you to unload. Hire someone with a forklift or if you are experienced with one, rent a forklift...joe

I prefer point to point. Open flat bed, shrinkwrapped inside a crate or at least tarped inside and again outside over the crate. If crating isn't an option, shrinkwrap beats tarps. I've never seen a hauler with tarps that didn't have holes in bad places. Dave

[Dan Chouinard]

Thanks Joe for supporting and shedding light on David's suggestion to use point to point shipping. Thanks to the rest of you guys for highlighting the risks involved in acquiring used machinery.
So much to consider, new or used. Heck, buying anything during this pandemic has to be called into question. No one knows where this is headed.