Shipping Catastrophe

[Marty Grass]

Take a look at this video first. I have some comments.

My educated guess is the box was either dropped a considerable distance with the front hitting the ground or the box was upright and fell forward. The opposite is possible but less likely.

Momentum involves mass and velocity. That headstock had a lot of momentum due to the tuners. The weak point is at the joint of the headstock and neck. A fall of the box would create an angular force due to the angle of the headstock being different than the neck. This produces a tearing force that shears some wood fibers microseconds before others, causing an angular break.

The way to protect against this happening is to not allow any movement of the headstock after packing. It should be as close to 100% immobile as possible. Bubble wrap won't do that. It is better to pack the headstock with rags very, very tightly so that the headstock cannot flex at all and it is hard to close the case. Another helpful thing is to remove the tuners.

The packing around the guitar case should also be tight, restricting any movement of the case if it fell.

I know that the video is against UPS. My experience is that the company doesn't matter that much unless maybe you go to a high end shipper. Gibson used to ship artist's guitars in some instances with an employee and a second seat on a plane for coddling.

[Jimmy blue note]

All too familiar. I have similar sentiments regarding UPS. A good percentage of good experiences and enough bad ones to put a permanent red flag on them. Their fine print lack of responsibility and accountability is legendary in the business. Their insurance is there to fund the legal team that has written loopholes into any situation.
It's a myth that how you pack it within the case is the largest factour. If I pack a guitar, I use FedEx, I use a box within a box, the inner box has a solid hard styrofoam block in the bottom of the inner case (inspired by Gibson's form fit base that cradles the case within an immobile shock absorbing block). Fully encased in peanuts in the inner box. That box goes into a larger box with a layer of bubble wrap on the bottom and more peanuts surrounding the inner box mixed with a mat of bubble wrap.

I worked at Ibanez and we got crates shipped overseas from all corners of the far east and I've seen all sorts of damage but even the best packed guitar within a case can't protect the shock transmitted up the neck from the box falling over OR being dropped on its end. This video doesn't even acknowledge the critical role of insulating the CASE for total shock absorbing immobility in transit. Insulated box within an insulated box, with high density foam blocks at both the headstock and butt end, two types of insulation on the face and back end of the case. THIS is how you absorb the shock within the case...from outside.

It's obsessive for 90% of the shipping situations but adequate insurance is protecting for the 10% of the things you wouldn't even suspect.
Watching this video, it was obvious from both of those guys that they haven't seen the damage that results from impact from inadequate boxing. I've seen it, and paid for it, and made my living repairing it, more than anyone would ever suspect.

[nyc chaz]

This is why i will not bother to buy a guitar from overseas.I had a guitar damaged just going overnight from New Jersey to New york by UPS.The guitar in the video was probably opened by customs and not repacked properly.

[equenda]

I watched the whole video. The video talks about a shipping from the U.S.A. to Italy. I don't know what happens and how shipments of musical instruments work in the United States and other countries, but I know what NOT to do in Italy: send a guitar by post or with a courier.
No person in Italy can think of sending a guitar with UPS/FEDEX/ITALIAN POSTAL SERVICE or other similar services. This is because, in the unlikely event that the instrument is damaged, NO ONE will take responsibility. Even after months of research it will be impossible to get compensation. This is the situation in Italy. So if you have to send your very expensive Gibson L-5CES from Naples to Milan......go by train or with your car and enjoy the trip. End of the story.

Ettore

[Jimmy Smith]

My educated guess is the box was either dropped a considerable distance with the front hitting the ground or the box was upright and fell forward. The opposite is possible but less likely.

No, it got smashed. If there's any semblance of careful packaging, a fall inside a box wouldn't break off the headstock.

The way to protect against this happening is to not allow any movement of the headstock after packing. It should be as close to 100% immobile as possible. Bubble wrap won't do that. It is better to pack the headstock with rags very, very tightly so that the headstock cannot flex at all and it is hard to close the case. Another helpful thing is to remove the tuners.

The way to protect against that is to ship in a hardshell case, then bubble wrap it. If you want the guitar to be free from risk of being damaged, you have to pretty much package it to withstand being thrown off the roof or smashed under like 200 lbs.

I know that the video is against UPS. My experience is that the company doesn't matter that much unless maybe you go to a high end shipper. Gibson used to ship artist's guitars in some instances with an employee and a second seat on a plane for coddling.

That's true, the company doesn't matter. I worked at UPS for a short time. Noone handling the packages in these standard shippers has any care for them. It's a bunch of minimum wage workers hucking boxes around and stacking them to the roof inside box trucks. Think about it.

[Marty Grass]

The two mechanisms of guitar damage in shipping are crushing and angular deceleration. I've experienced both.

Crushing usually affects the body. The case is most compressible over the center of the body. The neck is better protected by having a narrower channel with the same stiffness of the sides. Try this at home. Push on the case over the headstock and see how deep it goes. Now do the same over the area covering the center of the top.

The headstock is most vulnerable where it meets the neck. The wood fibers are not continuous from the neck to the tip of the headstock due to the neck angle in Gibsons. Also, there is more mass at the end of the headstock from the tuners and, in some such as Gibson, the open book flair at the end. The typical Gibson case has a support under the neck-headstock region, not under or above the end of the headstock. The headstock has a wobble area that bubble wrap cannot fully stop. A backward or forward fall with the box upright slamming to the floor causes the greatest velocity at the headstock. The neck stops first on impact due to the support under it. The headstock has significant mass and less support. This causes angular deceleration with the pivot point where the neck is supported next to the headstock. The short wood fibers separate from each other and the few longer ones break.

Double boxing with some cushioning between boxing reduces the rate of headstock deceleration, much like airbags in a car do. It can be helpful. Rigidly packing the headstock and removing the tuners eliminates as much as possible the angular momentum of the headstock.

I agree that those who work for shippers may not care about content fragility. They focus on moving boxes. I have had a lot of experience shipping. I cannot say that there has been a difference among the USPS, FedEx, and UPS. My brother-in-law worked for UPS monitoring hidden cameras and planting phony packages to detect theft, which is a bit of a different story. Package handling respect though is not as well monitored.

Both Gibson and Heritage had or have a calculated return to factory rate due to breakage. It's a couple percent. Some of the breakage is intentional due to buyer's remorse. I saw one archtop returned with a crushed top where you could see a bit of a shoe print near the breakage. They do analysis of shipping damage and have made a decision that the breakage rate is not high enough to change their packaging strategy. They cannot ship to a dealer with no tuners and strings. It has to be set up before it leaves the factory to address function anyway.

I'm fine with people disagreeing with these concepts. But we can all agree that there is risk with shipping.

[RJVB]

But we can all agree that there is risk with shipping.

Or even travelling with them, if you can't do all the handling yourself. My contact at Dowina experienced that when they went to the last NAMM and found most of their instruments broken upon arrival...

[Cunamara]

I wonder what the actual incidence/prevalence of these damages is. When it happens, we hear about it at length because people are rightfully upset; but that makes the problem seem potentially larger than it is. We don't see a plethora of videos on YouTube about their guitars arriving safely. Does this kind of damage occur in .01% of shipped guitars or 10%?

The other thing often not discussed is that this damage is susceptible because it's a bad design from a mechanical perspective. The large channel routed out for the trussrod nut weakening the area, the effects of cutting in the headstock angle combined with the misguided expectation that this be done from a single large block of wood (because that's the way it's always been done, back when old growth wood was abundant), the dislike of volutes to strengthen the area, etc., are the underlying causes of these breaks happening. A two piece joint preserving the linear strength of the wood is (1) stronger and (2) a more responsible use of the materials; a much smaller trussrod route using an allen nut instead of a hex nut, which requires a rout easily twice the size to allow room for the nut driver, would also help. Even better, a trussrod adjusting from the side of the heel.

[Marty Grass]

Vince Magol, a lawyer, guitarist, and once-co-owner of Heritage talked about breakage. He said 2-3%. That includes all damage. Nothing will protect against an amuk forklift impaling a box.

Here is a Gibson photo. You can see the grain direction (not the red lines).



Here is my Gibson Howard Roberts. There are three important features. First, maple is a studier wood. Second, it's a three piece neck. Third, there's a volute.

[Woody Sound]

Topic aside, Rich's tone is to die for.

[Gregc57]

As bad as that break looks, I bet a good luthier can repair that so you'd never know it broke, and it would never break there again. It's pretty clean.

[2bornot2bop]

I’ve shipped over 100 archtop’s both nationally and internationally. I’ve never once had a shipping incident. What’s my secret?

I’ve shipped with FedEx exclusively. I always double box any shipment. In the box base I use hard styrofoam. In the interior I use double corrugated cardboard, folded in half to double the cardboard strength, surrounding both the top and bottom of the guitar case. So in essence this results in 5 to 6 layers of protection on both the top and back. Surrounding the sides of the case neck I again use stiff styrofoam. The guitar interior is surrounded by heavy wrapping paper. The headstock is wrapped and cushioned with dense sponge. The case is then wrapped with stretch wrap to keep it from getting scratched in shipment.

Shipping a guitar begins with preparation. It takes me an hour to wrap a guitar for shipment. It’s a time consuming process. But if you read my eBay feedback you’d read countless comments about how the guitar was packaged. That’s not a coincidence.

What’s the typical shipping weight with all of that extra cardboard? Average is 48 pounds, but for international shipments I’ve exceeded 50 lbs more than once. You’ve got to package for your box falling off of the shipping belt which hovers 5 feet above the ground. If you can’t do this you should not consider shipping, imo. It is what it is. And yes it’s more expensive to ship.

[DMgolf66]

I’ve shipped over 100 archtop’s both nationally and internationally. I’ve never once had a shipping incident. What’s my secret?

I’ve shipped with FedEx exclusively. I always double box any shipment. In the box base I use hard styrofoam. In the interior I use double corrugated cardboard, folded in half to double the cardboard strength, surrounding both the top and bottom of the guitar case. So in essence this results in 5 to 6 layers of protection on both the top and back. Surrounding the sides of the case neck I again use stiff styrofoam. The guitar interior is surrounded by heavy wrapping paper. The headstock is wrapped and cushioned with dense sponge. The case is then wrapped with stretch wrap to keep it from getting scratched in shipment.

Shipping a guitar begins with preparation. It takes me an hour to wrap a guitar for shipment. It’s a time consuming process. But if you read my eBay feedback you’d read countless comments about how the guitar was packaged. That’s not a coincidence.

What’s the typical shipping weight with all of that extra cardboard? Average is 48 pounds, but for international shipments I’ve exceeded 50 lbs more than once. You’ve got to package for your box falling off of the shipping belt which hovers 5 feet above the ground. If you can’t do this you should not consider shipping, imo. It is what it is. And yes it’s more expensive to ship.

Would love to see a video or pictures.

[RJVB]

You’ve got to package for your box falling off of the shipping belt which hovers 5 feet above the ground. If you can’t do this you should not consider shipping, imo. It is what it is. And yes it’s more expensive to ship.

Some shipping/packaging genius should read and take some inspiration from Larry Niven...
Crash Web by Larry Niven from Crashlander

[brewster]

a bit off track perhaps but relevant.

like many, i have some horror stories about instruments and UPS. i've since avoided ups as much as i can, actually dropped my account some years back. used USPS and Fedex when possible, tho' many probably have horror stories for them too.

read a story last week saying that FedEx is bailing out of their 10-11yr role in handling USPS air stuff. couldn't make a/enough profit it seems. that may change things for the overnight shippers who went USPS.

point is that it apparently makes UPS more prevalent in instrument shipping (including mandolins, violins as i have) if you have used USPS for any of that. go direct to FedEx i guess but there is always a question of their insurance coverage for vintage stuff. i've been too slow in getting a heritage insurance policy for my instrument assortment, and for shipping insurance as i need to sell some, but this brings it back to the forefront for me.