Greetings!

My name is John Dixon. I live in Shawnee, Kansas - a suburb of Kansas City. Since the 1970s, I've operated Phonogenic Productions, providing live sound reinforcement and location recording services for clients in the greater Kansas City area. So I'm always in the market to acquire new pieces of audio gear - which means I'm almost always selling some, too!

Sometimes it's gear I don't need any more. Sometimes it's excess equipment I've acquired in package deals. And yes... sometimes it's something I picked up at a garage or estate sale, or an item I'm selling on behalf of a friend or relative. But it'll almost always be a piece of vintage or professional audio equipment... clearly described, packed carefully, shipped promptly, and offered at a fair price.

A Herculean Packing Job

Just to give you an example of a "worst case" shipping scenario, here's the story of an Auditronics 424 broadcast production console that was sold and shipped to a buyer in California.

This is a very large and heavy item, measuring 60 inches in width and weighing in at around 300 pounds when packed for shipment. Even worse, it's like an iceberg - it's designed to be lowered into a rectangular hole cut into custom studio furniture, and much of it is below table level. So not only is there no such thing as a cardboard box in which it can be transported safely, but even putting it inside (or removing it from) such a box would be very difficult.

Obviously this was going to require some kind of wooden crate to protect it while being handled by the freight company. Ideally it would have the ability to be handled by a forklift, and be what the freight companies refer to as "stackable" - the former to minimize the number of times it would have to be handled by hand (reducing the chance it would be dropped) and the latter to help keep the cost of shipment down.

At the same time, it would have to be designed so that it could be handled by hand, because the buyer and I had agreed that to keep costs low, it would be shipped "terminal to terminal" - I would deliver it to the freight office in Kansas City, and he would pick it up from the terminal in Orange; while the freight warehouses would be able to handle it with forklifts, both the buyer and I would have to deal with the crate by hand. Finally, it would have to be designed so that we could load the console into it without a hoist - and the buyer would be able to remove it just as easily.

Prior to photographing the console for its eBay listing, I had simply thrown together a cradle from some 2x4s, and supported it on some sawhorses. At first I had imagined that I would simply build a crate around the cradle, but the buyer had an additional problem: his full size van has a limited amount of width available because of shelves installed on either side, so the crate could be no more than 35" wide. After carefully measuring the console and doing the math, I realized that I'd have to do something different - and there would be little room for error!

So I decided that I finally had an excuse to download (and learn) Google's free SketchUp CAD tool, and it saved the day! This 3D drafting and modeling software allowed me to be absolutely sure that the crate would meet these exacting requirements before I cut the first piece of wood. This SketchUp rendering of the design (shown here without the end, top and bottom panels) shows the important elements: the side rails (on which the console would ride in the crate) and the 2x4 stringers that would allow the crate to support the weight of the console itself... plus whatever the freight company might stack on top! The bottom stringers would be 1 3/4 inches above the floor (allowing a forklift to easily get underneath the crate) and there would be handholds in the side panels flush along the bottom of the side rails.

My son and I spent a Saturday constructing the crate. After the frame, side panels and side rails had been assembled (with some really big screws) we attached the top and bottom panels, and the nearly completed crate was ready to receive the console. We disassembled the 2x4 cradle on which the console had been resting, held our breath (boy howdy!) and carefully moved the console across the shop to the waiting crate. It slid on to the rails with much less effort than we imagined it would take - thanks to SketchUp, it fit perfectly! All that was left was to screw some additional blocks above the side rails, and drive in a couple of shims to hold the console firmly in place. We nailed the end panels on, and we were finished!

Well... OK... not quite! Still to come was packing up the console's power supply, manual and cabling (a more traditional packing job, but still a 60 pound package for UPS) and loading the crate into my van - which took myself, my son, my son-in-law... and my wonderful neighbor Jim! (I carefully advised the buyer to have a similar crew on hand when he unloaded the console at his home!) But at the FedEx National LTL terminal in Kansas City, the crate rode on the forklift like a champ, and was clearly the stoutest crate in evidence at the warehouse. It arrived in Orange three days later, and I got a very nice e-mail from the buyer, whose van accepted the crate with 5/8 of an inch to spare:

I received both the console (at the FedEx LTL Facility) and the other equipment (Delivered by UPS) today, and they're in great shape! I truly appreciate your quick shipping, your fine packaging job, and most of all, your updates throughout this process! I complemented you earlier about your attention to the maximum width of the crate, and it paid off in spades today! To quote Ace Ventura, Pet Detective... "LLLLLLLLIKE A GLOVE!!!"

Naturally this isn't the kind of thing we do every day, but I hope it illustrates the pride and care we bring to getting your package to you safely.