Shipping an arcade CRT without its frame

[brandon.arnold]

Hi all. Does anyone have advice on crating a loose arcade CRT, for freight shipment? It isn’t like a PVM or TV, mounted in an enclosure. How do you protect the neck and screen?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

As someone who has professional experience with shipping fragile breakables, going overboard on the padding will go a long, long way. Like, if I were shipping a loose CRT inside a wooden crate, I'd make sure there was 2 to 3 inches of bubble wrap on all sides, with some stiff styrofoam to hold it in place in the center of the crate. The only problem is if the crate tips over or worse, goes upside down, the full weight of the monitor will end up on the neck of the CRT.

If you ship it on a skid with an LTR carrier as a tailgate delivery, that minimizes the risk of damage that courier shipping in a box would have, as the skid is far less likely to suffer any kind of drop damage than a box that needs to be picked up and carried would have, and the crate won't get turned upside-down as long as you've secured it to the skid properly (tons of plastic wrap and possibly screwing some wood to help hold it in place). You still want to make sure the crate it's in has tons of bubble wrap to protect it. You'll have to pay a fair amount to have it shipped on a skid with a freight truck this way though compared to just sending it as a crate with FedEx or UPS. Tailgate delivery is what you need if you don't have a shipping dock (such as delivering it to a home) so that they lower it to the ground on a little elevator and from there you can unwrap the skid and CRT as needed. Just make sure it's not raining at the time of delivery, or if the person it's being delivered to has a garage ask the driver to wheel the skid into it.

If you want to use a courier like FedEx or UPS, or postal service like USPS, consider building a wooden frame using the mounting holes for the CRT if possible. You can make a rigid frame that holds everything in place and extends past the neck. That way it will take the weight of the monitor if the monitor gets turned upright without damaging the neck.

[gray117]

Pallet shipping should prevent any tumbling usually associated with any kind of parcel/packet shipping... Assuming that's an option.

.... But yeah one hard enclosure around a softer enclosure. Same goes for shipping even a framed/cased crt - something to take any impact, something else to help absorb the impact (+ any more minor jiggle/vibration).

Let us know how it goes - kind of weirdly curious when see posts like this to know what the outcome was

[thchardcore]

First method: Face down on a good piece of shipping foam (medium to high density). You will want to put a thin sheet of something (static wrap) across the face so the foam does not damage the antistatic coating. The ears on the bonded crt mounting points should be bolted or strapped to the pallet. Ideally, you want near zero play. Challenge will be finding bolts long enough and securing it.

Second method: Use a heavy duty large box. Same as above but you put clean towels between the foam on the bottom of the box and the face of the tube. Mark the outside of the box so it says "up where the neck will be as well as "do not stack" You want a lot of margin for error on the top. Tape up box and then you can static wrap the entire box through the boards on the top of the pallet to secure it. Expect to buy a decent sized roll of static wrap at Home Depot or similar.

I still recommend you find a frame and just static wrap the frame to a pallet.

[Rastan78]

I would recommend against shipping a tube face down. The glass isn't meant to bear the entire weight of the monitor. I've bought more than one NOS arcade monitor and they are always packaged sitting in the normal way.

Also broad flat surfaces of glass are much more fragile when sitting horizontally then vertically. Ever seen those trucks that drive around a city with huge glass panels on racks? There's a reason why the racks are designed to hold the glass vertically.

[thchardcore]

Brand new GDM tube from Sony came face down in it's original packaging...

[brandon.arnold]

Hey all, thank you so much for the insight! I am going to be doing it soon, and I'm feeling better about it overall. I think if I can manage to get it wrapped like a baby in many layers of bubble wrap, with a crate sized around it, risk should be quite low.

[Rastan78]

Brand new GDM tube from Sony came face down in it's original packaging...

Are we talking about just the tube or along with chassis and frame? Bare tube face down makes total sense

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I think if I can manage to get it wrapped like a baby in many layers of bubble wrap, with a crate sized around it, risk should be quite low.

Making a frame to protect the neck if it gets turned over isn't a bad idea and that should help too, but if it's just the bare tube and neck I guess you may have to risk it. I don't know if it's necessary, but it might be safer to make the layer that's touching the TV and components made of anti-static bubble wrap if you can get it. No idea if that's overkill though.

[thchardcore]

Brand new GDM tube from Sony came face down in it's original packaging...

Are we talking about just the tube or along with chassis and frame? Bare tube face down makes total sense

Just a bare tube with yoke. Apologies if I wasn't clear.

It appeared as though OP did not have access to a frame, so that was why I was steering towards face down with a HD foam. If frame is present, I totally agree with you.