Step 11 - Packaging
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The chest passes final inspection, so it's time to package it up for shipping. Because we put a considerable amount of time and trouble into building our furniture, we'd like to see it get were it's going without damage. Therefore we put considerable time and trouble into packing our furniture for transit.
 We start by finding a box that is of a suitable size and weight for the piece being shipped. That generally means crawling up into the loft above the workshop and sorting through the flattened boxes we have stored there. These boxes come from all sorts of places, we're always keeping an eye out for empty boxes that are the right size and weight for our use. Some, like the boxes for our TV Tray tables, we have custom made. Through careful design, a set of four regular TV Tray tables on a stand, packed in a box just *barely* fits within the UPS regulations for standard UPS shipping. If we don't have a proper box, we'll go buy one. In this case, the box from a surface planer we bought a while back is just the right size.
 To protect the chest during shipment, we'll wrap it completely in a layer of 3/4" Styrofoam. Taking measurements off the chest, we lay-out and cut the panels with a sharp utility knife. As the panels are cut we fit them to the chest. The panels are held to one another with duct tape, but we must protect against the tape touching the chest, for that would leave sticky residue on the finish.
 We continue cutting and taping until the chest us completely sheathed in foam. This chest took 3/4 of a 4 foot x 8 foot sheet of packing foam and 1/2 roll of duct tape. This will protect the chest against shocks from the box being tossed about by dock apes and add extra protection against damage should the box be pierced by handling equipment as it's moved about.
 Then I cut one more sheet of foam to go in the bottom of the box as extra cushioning, and set the wrapped chest in the box. We want an additional 1 inch (minimum) all around the wrapped up chest for filler. Usually we use crumpled or shredded paper. sometime we'll use foam peanuts -- if we have a bunch on hand from shipments received. If we buy peanuts, we buy the ones made of corn starch so if they end up in land fill, they'll be dissolved by rain water.
 Finally we seal up the carton, affix our FRAGILE stickers to each face of the box, get weight and measurements on the box, and process the shipment through our bookkeeping software.
In this case, we under estimated the shipping weight by 7 pounds, so this shipment will cost us about $14.00 more than Jon paid in shipping fees, plus the cost of the Styrofoam, duct tape, packaging tape, and labels -- not to mention the hour and a half of labor it took to do all this. So, anyone who thinks we're getting rich off our shipping fees had better think again!
The final step is to hand the box off to our friendly UPS truck driver. From here on out it is in their hands. We provide a tracking utility from the In The Shop page so that both Jon and I can follow along with it's progress and it's expected delivery date. I also document the delivery date, time and who received it in the customer file. Just in case.
Now, it's on to the next project.
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