vinyl fiend
Active Member
The driver sat on it - all 300 lbs.
eBay strikes again...
- Thread starter EngineerNate
- Start date
I bought a turntable from shopgoodwill. They packed it decently, in lots of bubble wrap. However, whoever packed it left the multiplay spindle installed upright in the centerhole. Needless to say, when it arrived, the spindle was bent almost in half and totally destroyed. Since they did exercise care in packing, I put it down to ignorance about how to do it correctly. (They probably didn't even know the spindle was removable.)
I've shipped 4 or 5 TTs — obsessive packing, every part isolated, thick styrofoam, undamaged. One feedback said "So well packed even Godzilla couldn't hurt it."
If I ever buy a TT online, I'll send them an empty box with all the packing material in it, and careful instructions. But that's a lot of effort, cost, and presumes the sellers ability to follow the instructions — very optimistic presumption, Ikea just opened a new service that follows instructions for you.
A guy bought a Linn/Ittok from me on Ebay years ago. He drove from Santa Fe NM to Los Angeles to get it. I assured him I knew how to pack it, described how, guaranteed it would arrive undamaged — didn't matter. He drove 12 straight hours to my house, paid me, then started to leave.
"Jeez man, 12 hours! At least take a 5-minute break, have a some coffee!" "No thanks. I have a thermos in the car." And off he went.
24 hours non-stop driving.
If I ever buy a TT online, I'll send them an empty box with all the packing material in it, and careful instructions. But that's a lot of effort, cost, and presumes the sellers ability to follow the instructions — very optimistic presumption, Ikea just opened a new service that follows instructions for you.
A guy bought a Linn/Ittok from me on Ebay years ago. He drove from Santa Fe NM to Los Angeles to get it. I assured him I knew how to pack it, described how, guaranteed it would arrive undamaged — didn't matter. He drove 12 straight hours to my house, paid me, then started to leave.
"Jeez man, 12 hours! At least take a 5-minute break, have a some coffee!" "No thanks. I have a thermos in the car." And off he went.
24 hours non-stop driving.
That's too much haha.
I'm buying sold as parts stuff because I like the challenge of making stuff that's broken work again. If it arrives damaged, back to the seller it goes. I'm 1/2 at this point.
If I ever bought something legitimately valuable I'd be much more picky about what sellers I bought from.
I'm buying sold as parts stuff because I like the challenge of making stuff that's broken work again. If it arrives damaged, back to the seller it goes. I'm 1/2 at this point.
If I ever bought something legitimately valuable I'd be much more picky about what sellers I bought from.
Wow thats too far,I left my last job because of the travelling,20 miles a day there and back.I now work 3 miles away.
If I have to go to Liverpool or Leeds which is about 40 miles either way I'll catch a train.
Driving in this country is a pain,the roads were designed for horses and carts and the M62 motorway is at best so crowded its often at standstill.
If I have to go to Liverpool or Leeds which is about 40 miles either way I'll catch a train.
Driving in this country is a pain,the roads were designed for horses and carts and the M62 motorway is at best so crowded its often at standstill.
I commute ~1.5h to grad school at the moment. It sucks.
KontrolFan
New Member
Nate,
Sorry to hear your shipping woes. Guess I got lucky with one and only ebay TT purchase, seller specified that shipping would be $25 because of how carefully it had to be packed, in description stated some assembly would be required upon arrival due to disassembly on his end, removal of cartridge, tonearm weight, platter and dust cover, wrapping and boxing them separately within main box, twist tying tone-arm to rest and taping in place. Even after all his care, shipping resulted in a one inch chip in the dust cover. I consider myself extremely fortunate. Hope this gets resolved to your liking.
Sorry to hear your shipping woes. Guess I got lucky with one and only ebay TT purchase, seller specified that shipping would be $25 because of how carefully it had to be packed, in description stated some assembly would be required upon arrival due to disassembly on his end, removal of cartridge, tonearm weight, platter and dust cover, wrapping and boxing them separately within main box, twist tying tone-arm to rest and taping in place. Even after all his care, shipping resulted in a one inch chip in the dust cover. I consider myself extremely fortunate. Hope this gets resolved to your liking.
Returned it yesterday. Still waiting on the refund.
s-petersen
Scott
I sold all of my tables locally,they are very difficult to ship, A Thorens platter almost needs it's own box.
vwestlife
Super Member
If you want it to survive United Parcel Smashers, package it the way that Radio Shack packaged their computers:
ColonelKurtz
Are my methods unsound?
Disassembled within reason (your discretion), then everything bubble wrapped individually, THEN put in a box within another box (bubble wrap between boxes), is the best method I've found, so far.
KontrolFan
New Member
I was lucky, that's exactly how I received the one I purchased from an audio enthusiast ebayer. FedEx still managed to puncture one side of the box resulting in damage to the dust cover, and although box was labeled This Side Up, it was left at my door on its side. I don't think I'd roll the dice again.
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15 years ago or so, i bought one of the Kenwood faux stone plinth tables on ebay, and the guy simply put the thing in the box as it sat and shipped it- it was banged to hell, and he of course lost the dispute, but damn i could never figure out what the guy thought would happen to it in transit
mprince
Super Member
Best method has been posted here on the AK site, it is more than bubble wrap. Ideally you have rigid foam between the inner and outer box, that is far more protective than bubble wrap, especially if shipping a heavier table. In a nutshell, here is how I pack a TT and I have never had a complaint let alone damage of any kind.
- Remove the following from the table:
- Dustcover
- Counterweight
- Platter
- Headshell/Cartridge
- 45 adaptor
- Anything else that could possibly work its way loose (RCA or power cables, accessories like damping troughs, etc)
- Use a twist tie to secure the tonearm to it's rest - the clip built into your rest is not adequate and can easily break in shipment
- Wrap the entire table with stretch wrap to keep everything stable, then bubble wrap in both directions (side/side and front/back)
- Wrap with bubble wrap and place the dustcover on top of the wrapped plinth, and unitize the cover/plinth with (tight) stretch wrap and then an additional layer of bubble wrap. Once this is done, put the assembly into a large plastic bag (kitchen trash bag works well) and tape securely
- In the bottom of the first box, place a piece of rigid foam that fits the box dimensions. Place the platter on top of this - I usually secure the platter to the foam by poking holes through the foam and using twine or twist ties through those holes and the access holes in the platter.
- Place the wrapped table on top of the platter, feet side down
- Use rigid foam to fill any spaces around the turntable sides.
- In a low-profile box that will fit on top of the turntable, pack and place all the other stuff you removed. I normally bag things separately and separate the components in that box with bubble wrap. If you are shipping a cartridge, take care that is packaged properly. My wife does work with rhinestones and I take her discarded jewel jars, and drill the lids with 2 holes 1/2" apart, then I mount the cartridge to the lid and re-apply to the jar so the cartridge is 100% protected. If I have the original cartridge packaging I pack the cartridge in that instead. Make sure this box is well packed, seal it up and place on top of the turntable, making sure any voids along the sides are filled with foam (best) or bubble wrap.
- Cover the top of the first box with a thick sheet of cardboard, and seal it up
- Construct the outer box, which ideally is 2" larger in each dimension than the inner box (I use brand new boxes)
- Cut a sheet of 1" thick rigid insulation foam so that two pieces fit to the exact dimensions of the bottom of the carton. Place one sheet in the bottom, then place the packed inner carton on top of it.
- Cut sheets of rigid foam such that they fit exactly on each side and come up to the top of the inner carton. Place the other large cut foam sheet on top of this. The inner carton should now be completely encapsulated in rigid foam.
- Place a thick sheet of cardboard on top of the top foam, and seal the outer carton securely.
- Bring it to FedEx (I won't ship a turntable any other way)
The only better system I've seen is the packaging for a SOTA table, where the table is bolted to a piece of plywood and placed in special packaging where the turntable "floats" in the shipping carton.
I recently bought my dad a Music Hall MMF 2.2. Being budget minded and new to turntables, I originally bought him a TEAC TN-300 from Amazon warehouse. This is how it arrived:
Needless to say it was fubared. I got my money back and he got a much nicer table out of the deal so... all's well that ends well.
Thanks for this!
You can get sheet foam pretty cheap at home depot, it's sold as insulation for garage doors in ~1ftx4ft sections in packs of 4 or 6 I think. If you have a truck the 4x8' sheets of Styrofoam wall insulation are even cheaper per sq-ft. I used that when I double boxed an enterprise grade network storage device (Look up the Nexsan Sataboy if you're curious, it weighed ~60lbs) using the wall insulation foam and it arrived in perfect shape.
My other tip for saving money is to make your own cardboard boxes out of the moving boxes from home depot. They have double thick ones that are 22x22x24 (IIRC) for about $4. If you're careful you can cut them down to a lower height and maintain structural integrity pretty easily. Much cheaper than getting large shipping boxes from FedEx or the UPS Store.
Lastly, if you're going to ship a lot, weigh packages yourself and pay for postage using paypal even if you aren't using paypal for the transaction. For some reason, UPS especially on paypal is 10-20% cheaper than the price at the UPS store for me. I've never had trouble with the postage either.
The other thing I've done successfully with shipping servers, is replicating the expanding form-fit foam packaging materials with great stuff foam. You wrap whatever you're shipping with plastic wrap or place it inside a trash bag to prevent getting anything on it. Then suspend it in the center of the box by placing a piece of sheet styrofoam in the bottom underneath it, and shoot the great stuff into the corners of the box. Once it's cured, I usually pull out whatever I'm shipping to make sure that the buyer won't have any trouble getting it out and that I didn't get any great stuff where it shouldn't be. Then just place sheet foam over the top to the level of the top of the box and you've got super secure packaging for whatever you're shipping.
Cheers,
Nathan
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The truth of the matter is that the title of this should be "dumbass packers', not "Ebay strikes again". Ebay has some faults, but they're not at fault for poor packaging of an item.
Agree with those who are hesitant to buy turntables that aren't local and must be shipped. Here's my latest disaster. Even after giving detailed instruction to the seller on how to package the table, he didn't listen and did it "his way". He fastened the deck tightly to the plinth, removed the heavy platter, but for some reason did NOT pack the dustcover in a separate box like I told him. He packed the heavy platter in it's own box though, then proceeded to put it on TOP of the dustcover. Ugh. Package didn't look too terrible on the outside but........... well....... you see.
The only good part of this story is that he immediately refunded every penny of my purchase after I sent him pictures of what I received.
Agree with those who are hesitant to buy turntables that aren't local and must be shipped. Here's my latest disaster. Even after giving detailed instruction to the seller on how to package the table, he didn't listen and did it "his way". He fastened the deck tightly to the plinth, removed the heavy platter, but for some reason did NOT pack the dustcover in a separate box like I told him. He packed the heavy platter in it's own box though, then proceeded to put it on TOP of the dustcover. Ugh. Package didn't look too terrible on the outside but........... well....... you see.
The only good part of this story is that he immediately refunded every penny of my purchase after I sent him pictures of what I received.
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Damn, that's awful.
r887661
Active Member
You are so right, eBay has absolutely no seller protection policy. I'm sick of them. And packaging, ye gods, I received a Mitzy DA-A15DC amp and it was trashed. You could see it quite clearly throuh the holes in the packaging. I absolutely tore the seller a new A@$ H*&^...I told I would not even ship cabbages the way he had sent that beautiful amp. I got my money back but that piece of hifi history is now doomed for the dump...maybe spares at best.
