Hi, I'm Angus. I've been drooling over Sticks for about a year now, and can finally afford a second-hand one. This will involve someone shipping their stick to me, and it arriving (hopefully!) in one piece.

So my question is, how do you package Sticks for shipment? (NB: International shipment, to Australia.) Is the big hard-case enough on its own? What about for people who don't own a hard-case? I guess there must be a fairly standard procedure for this, as Emmett ships sticks all over the place all the time without the big hard-case.

I realise that as the buyer I won't be doing the packing, but it's something I'll want to discuss beforehand with the person I buy from, to make sure my stick arrives intact. Any advice on this from people who've done it would be really appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Angus

The hard case will do it. Duct tape the locks! Some people put the case inside a card board box but that is for cosmetic reasons only, I´d say. I personally don´t care at all how the case itself looks.

Sincerely//Jan

Whoa, steady on there, I wouldn't recommend sending it in a hard-case only. It would probably survive the trip, but look like crap and might be missing a handle and a latch or two. A few of the guys at the Melbourne seminar were happy to show off their domestic hard-case scars and that's only from small shipping trips!

Given you don't know how many cities or airports it might travel through, I would recommend that the hard-case is packed in a slightly larger box filled with that popcorn filling stuff and maybe some solid bits of polystyrene or even bubble-wrap to stop it moving around. If it was shipping in a gig-bag, I would recommend *more* bubble-wrap! It's probably just as important to have some bubble-wrap inside the hard-case to stop the Stick moving and damaging strings or anything that sticks out. My first ever Stick actually turned up inside a gig-bag inside a box inside a larger box, but the whole package was the size of a skinny coffin and took nearly two people to carry it! Maybe overkill.

Cheers,

EG

I'm looking at getting a stick to Australia very shortly as well. Looks like we have a fair number of "stickists" down here

I´ve shipped lots and lots of instruments in flight cases through the years and never had any problems. I´ve had one handle broken but it was bad before I shipped it. I´m certain that a cardboard box filled with popcorn won´t protect the case and the instrument much if the box is runned over by a buss or things like that. A good case can handle lots of abuse. I always tape the locks thou.

//J

Hi Angus,
I had my second-hand Stick shipped in a gig bag. It was shipped within North America (from Kentucky,US to Quebec, Canada) by ground shipment so I don't know if this kind of packaging would endure an overseas trip. (personally, I wouldn't risk it!!!). My experience was very good and my Stick arrived in one piece and in excellent condition. The gig bag was first wrapped in bubblewrap and then in foam used in cases. The whole thing was then put in a thick cardboard box that was then filled with styrofoam "peanuts". The box arrived in near-mint condition (the corners were a bit flattened, that's all). But, you never know what could happen during a long trip so, better be safe than sorry !!!!

Hope this helps!!!

Cheers,

Yves.

P.S. I've posted some pics of my Stick's packaging in the photo gallery if you want to take a look!!!

Thanks for all the replies, that helps me a lot.

Yves, I had a look at your photos, and they were very helpful too. I hadn't seen the yellow/brown 'foam used in cases' before, so now I know what you mean.

Can anyone tell me how Emmett ships Sticks with hard-cases? Does he just use the case, or does he use extra packaging as well? (EG's advice seems pretty good here though.)

A few years ago S.E. shipped hard cases slipped into a tight-fitting, rectangular cardboard box with no additional packing material. The current hard cases are extremely well padded/engineered so there should be no issue as far as I can tell.

Eric

Angus,

I can confirm what Eric has posted. I received my stick just before Christmas packaged exactly as he described.

Sam

And I bet that the card board box is only there to make the case look new when it arrives to the customer. Those cases are made to handle lots of abuse. The important thing is to duct tape the locks.

//J