Glad it worked out. This is an excellent guide.Roberttx,
I recently did ship a compact turntable in much the way you advocated.
It arrived successfully. This particular TT was smaller than normal and the top couldnt be removed, the first I've sold like that.
Hmmm...I wonder if that method (suitably modified) would work well for tube gear?
I've shipped a couple of console pulls like that. Remove, wrap and box the tubes then your vertical support is found in several places:
1: 1" sheets of Styrofoam cut to sit on the flanges of the chassis,
2: Styrofoam on the top of the power transformer,
3: Big block(s) of Styrofoam in the voids created by removing the tubes (assuming the sockets are flush) and/or any other flush voids you can find.
The boxed tubes go into whatever voids are left, cut more styrofoam to surround the whole thing (with voids to protect any knobs etc as you would with any receiver or amp, wrap the whole thing in cling film and box / double box as appropriate.