I have six guitars I need to ship. Four have hard shell cases, and two have gig bags.

Has anyone here ever shipped a guitar before?

If you have a hard shell case for it, should that be put into a bigger box with packing stuff so that it is centered in the box? Will the guitar be "okay" in the hard shell case inside of a bigger box, or should the guitar actually come out of the hard shell case to be shipped and wrapped separately?

I need to send them from San Jose to Seattle.

Any advise is appreciated. I've contacted a local guitar shop to see if they would help me, but I quite frankly don't trust anyone to package them - I'd rather package them myself to make sure they are done correctly.

I'm just not sure what is the best way to do it "correctly".

Let me know? Thanks,

Christine

I got a guitar by mailorder once, so I can offer some advice. The guitar I got was in a hardshell case, they had put some bubblewrap over it so it wouldn't smash the front of the case (the bottom of the case was pretty snug and well padded anyways). Then they put the hardshell case inside a large rectangular box and filled any empty space in the box with styrafoam packing peanuts. The guitar arrived in perfect condition.


As for the guitars in the gig bags, I'm not sure, bu you'll probably need to pad it better than the hardshell ones. Copious amounts of bubble wrap and packing peanuts should do the trick.

Sounds good.

I know where I can get some box material, but I don't know how much packing material I'll need, but I'm sure its a ton!

This is going to cost me.

I used to work at a guitar shop, and shipped stuff all the time...If you go to your local shop, they should have empty guitar boxes if they have a basement and/or do any kind of mail order or eBay or whatever. Even if they charge you a buck or two for the box its worth it. The ones in hardshells should be easy to pack, the ones in gig bags will take a bit more, but shouldnt be too bad. If the boxes dont already have the shipping paper left in them, crumble up some old newspapers and just make sure you can shake the box and the guitar wont really move. Thats actually how alot of the manufacturers ship to the stores, with packing paper. Also, it is a good practice to de-tune the strings to relieve some tension off the neck before shipping.

One last thing, if you are shipping USPS, they have some guidelines about the package size. The dimentions have to be within a certian measurement. Dont think it matters with UPS or FedEx though.

Hope that helps, good luck!

Jason

Just go ahead and send those guitars to me and I'll take care of the rest.

Seriously though, lots of bubble wrap, styrofoam, etc. Make sure that the case isn't moving around inside the box. The ones in hardshell cases should be fine, and the gig bagged ones too if you pack them well.

loosen the strings!

Thanks!

I think I'll go to my local shop on Saturday to see about some boxes.

Yeah, definately looseing the strings to keep strain off the neck is a good idea.

~ prints thread to highlight tips ~

c-

Well, its done.

Six of my seven Fender Squire Vista Venus guitars are sitting awaiting UPS pick up. The last one I'm keeping because the Rosewood neck was severely sun faded when I purchased it and its not pretty enough to be auctioned. The other six are beautiful and I hope they not only find a good home but also work to raise lots of money for Lifelong AIDS Alliance in Seattle.

I am happy with the box job I did on the four with the hard shell cases, but I'm less satisfied with the job I did on the two guitars in gig bags. I loosened the strings, wrapped the gig bags in bubble wrap, put them ying-yang style in one box together, put extra packaging around them so they could not move, and taped the box up.

I'm not happy with that box because it was too narrow for the job, so now it has a bulge in it, and is prone to tipping over regardless of which long end is down on the ground.

I declared the value on all of them, so I suppose if something goes wrong, UPS will give me money (let's hope, I'm sure if something goes wrong they will try to tell me it was my fault).

I used 200 feet of bubble wrap, 6 bicycle shipping corrigated boxes, and four rolls of tape (two of which have the stringy thread running through them.

Those guitars are rhumetically sealed and should survive a nuclear war, UPS should be a cake walk

My spelling blows though

c-