Tips to Pack Fine China or Glass Items for Shipping?

[Shalu Jain]

How to pack items for shipping? I have already used high quality wrapping mateial and duct tape to secure them, but still my expensive things got damaged.

Share your Tips on "How to Pack Fine China or Glass Items for Shipping".

Thanks

[Chris Barber]

Welcome to the forum Shalu!

Whenever possible I budget the packaging so that each object can be isolated from the others and held in place by organized structures of cushioning materials such as foam and corrugated paper. Picture grids of dividing walls, or arrays of holes cut into blocks of foam. No two objects would be stacked together in any of these prepared spaces. This approach increases the volume and material expense of a shipment, but greatly lowers the risk of damage.

The much more common approach in DIY or economy-level move projects is wrapping each object with multiple sheets of tissue or other wrapping material and stuffing additional dunnage of material between the wrapped objects. When combined with very careful handling of the boxes, such packing can protect dishes from damage in some cases. But this style of packing typically involves accumulations of weight, shifting positions, irregular pressures, and other undesirable effects on the objects. I would not advise this approach if there is any chance that the boxes will not be handled gently from door to door. For example, I might drive boxes of my own dishes across town packed with tissue or bubble-wrap, but I would not ship them that way.

Whether you separate each object with rigid dividers or use tissue etc, the double-box method described in another recent thread is generally a good idea when you wish to avoid wood crates: http://www.paccin.org/showthread.php?888-Tips-about-Best-packaging-material-and-ideas

Chris