Crafting Services & Shipment Preparation

Crate Services & Shipment Preparation

Crating is considered the best way to protect many types of freight. Some shippers prefer to make their crates instead of having them made professionally. Customers shipping extremely fragile items with a high value, such as furniture, tend to have their containers made by a professional crating service. It can be very economical to pay to have your items crated by a company rather than buying all the supplies yourself and taking a day to build the crate.

Proper packing or crating will allow your shipment to withstand road vibrations and cross-docking during transit. If your item is fragile or has a high value, crating is the absolute best solution. Not only does crating provide the highest protection against damage and loss, but you also get the highest level of security to the strength of the crate. Strong build crates protect against damage and can stack items on top without damaging the contents inside. Crating can save money and possibly give a “stackable shipment” discount.

Trust a professional crating service like Sullivan Industrial Services

The short answer is yes! Please make sure you strap your crate to a pallet. Having your item palletized will allow you to move quickly by a forklift. Putting your container on a pallet may ensure your shipment gets on time. If your crate is on a pallet, the freight carrier can move it from one trailer to another.

It’s nearly a universal truth that packaging your freight on a shipping pallet helps keep it safer and more secure during transit and handling. Tips for palletizing your freight:

As an added level of protection, some shippers choose to shrink-wrap by strapping them to a pallet and shrink-wrapping it. This step is only sometimes necessary; however, shrink-wrapping your crate allows you to secure documentation and small accessories to the container.

Does A Crate Cost More To Ship?

The extra weight of the crate and its size will affect your final shipping price. It is common for a wooden crate and pallet to ad 100lbs+ to a shipment. It is essential to make sure your BOL shows the packed and palleted weight and dimensions on it. Please include the crate and pallet weight or measurements to ensure your shipment gets on time. Building your crate is something you can do. If not, we recommend that a professional crating company crate your shipment. Check out our packaging and crating tips below.

What Questions Should You Ask a Crating Service for hire?

Freight Packaging

Packing Guide to Prevent Freight Damage

Avoid costly damage to your shipment by protecting it against road and warehouse conditions. This guide will help you prevent damage and loss by properly packing, securing, and labeling your shipment.
Unless your freight requires a full truckload, your shipment will be grouped with other less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments and shipped by truck. An adequately packed shipment is your best protection against damage. An improperly packed or poorly addressed load may cause delays and unnecessary damage.

We recommend following advice on how to pack and crate to avoid these problems.

What Is a Handling Unit?

A handling unit is a bundle of freight that is individually identified and transported. What may have started as ten individually packaged boxes, might now be ten boxes shrink wrapped together onto one pallet. If you have ten individual boxes that are all going to the same location, it makes sense to bundle them onto a pallet and ship as one handling unit. Not only does this method save you money by only shipping once, it’ll also save you the stress of having to keep track of ten individual shipments.

Types Packaging Your Freight Shipment

In the freight industry, we’re all about making things faster, more innovative, and overall more efficient. If there’s a way for a shipment to be condensed or for a truckload capacity to be maximized to save you money and time – we’re all over that. Luckily, there are countless methods for making shipping more seamless, the first way being – packaging. The way freight is packaged can make all the difference. It can change the shipping price, how it’s handled during transit, and even where it gets placed on a freight truck. Packaging your freight is a crucial step, not one on which you should cut corners. Various packaging options are available, and specific packaging options are best suited to the commodity you’re shipping.

Palletizing

A shipping pallet is an option when you have an oversized item that won’t fit within the confinements of a crate. Additionally, shipping pallets are a wise choice when you have several smaller boxes to consolidate and shrink-wrap into one handling unit. Pro tip: Thoroughly bubble wrap your freight before shrink-wrapping it to the pallet. Pallets or skids come in standard sizes (48″ x 40″) that can easily be purchased, or ask your local grocer or large retailers if they can provide you with one. Large items and multiple boxes should be adequately palletized. Make sure your boxes or crates do not overhang the pallet. When boxes or containers are stacked on a pallet, the boxes should be distributed evenly. Use heavy-duty plastic wrap to strap or secure your item(s) directly to the pallet if needed.

Be sure you have a loading dock or forklift at the pick-up and delivery location. If the pick-up and delivery locations do not have a dock, you must request a truck with a lift gate. There is an additional charge for added equipment options.

Where to get free pallets