Shipping drums

[drmmrboy]

I'm going to be selling a kit or 3 in the near future, and I'm looking for some pointers on shipping. I've never shipped drums before. It's gotta be kind of expensive. How do you do it? Packing? What's the best way to go?

[jhall]

Try and grab some boxes from your local drum/music shop. It will save you on the cost of boxes. Depends on the amount of drums you are shipping, but if you can remove the bass drum heads and nest a tom or possibly two inside the kick, that can be a help, but you want to watch the weight factor. If you are goind to do a bit of shipping go to Wal-Mart, Target, ect.. and buy a tape gun. It makes things a lot easier when trying to get everything closed up tight. You can purchase some bubble wrap/packing peanuts as well..avoid the UPS/Fedex store for purchasing items, as you will get gouged there.
I would estimate to ship a 4-5 piece kit accross the US using either FedEx or UPS you will spend 75-95 depending on the weight and amount of boxes.
I use USPS for the smaller items, they seem a little more reasonable. I had a hook up at my last music store gig.. we had daily pick up/delivery and i just used the shops account.. it was SO much cheaper.
Look into using a friends account.. small business owner ect, and just pay his fee. Will be much cheaper than using a retail establishment.
Good luck.
Jeff

[chetatkinsdiet]

Jhall has some good advice. The trouble with the boxes at music stores is that they nestled the drums. This is cool is you are absolutely sure you're packing them properly, but most of the time, you run the risk of damage if something slips and starts rubbing. You can wreck the interior of a perfect drum if you're not careful. Also, the strength of a drum is when both hoops are in place. So, I typically keep them all together. I just bit the bullet and usually buy boxes, at least for the larger ones. Use the 20x20x20 for most floor toms and the 24x24x24 is about as small as you can use for a 22" kick. That's really pushing it, but I've never had any incidents and I've probably shipped close to 50 or so kits/kick drums. Be sure to pack using real foam or peanuts, don't use newspaper. Insist that the buyers use insurance and go a bit over. One of the risks you take is that one of the 5 boxes gets lost or damaged. Then you've got an incomplete kit. They aren't going to be liable for the entire value of the kit, just the one box that's lost, so I typically add a "buffer" in my value, and insurance that I pay per box. I'm in TX, so pretty centrally located, but I can ship a typical kit anywhere in the US48 for about $60-75. The only time it gets more is with 24" kicks. They're double oversized and cost close to $50 at the cheapest rates to ship.

I use Fedex ground as they're the cheapest. As mentioned, don't use a UPS or mailbox etc store to do the shipping as they add a surcharge.

later,

m

[drmmrboy]

Good stuff guys. Thanks. thumbsup

Your shipping $$ are a lot less than I would have expected. Good point on the insurance too.

The kits I'm looking to sell are 3-4 pc, w/ 20" kicks. I have some singles too. As usual, I'll post them here first.