[R-390] Heavy Duty Large FedEx Shipping Box

[GRANT YOUNGMAN]

These things are used to ship very heavy items all over the place.  

If you’re talking about the pins that hold on the 8 corner connectors, they are not screws.  They are plastic pins.  These pins bear no load weight.  Their only purpose is to hold the plastic corners (which DO bear shear weight) in place.  There is NO wood in this carton.  It is 4-ply fiberboard with hard compressed paper corners.  There are NO screws to be inserted or removed, and the screws that hold the 4-ply fiberboard to the compressed corners have large washers.

Instead of guessing about the engineering, perhaps a call to Kubox would answer your questions.  FedEx uses these for their pack and ship service for large heavy items.  These are not equivalent to a wood crate, but they are FAR better than a 2-ply cardboard or FastPack box, and an r-390 size box weighs only about 19 lbs, compared to a wood crate that weighs as much as the radio.  After packing a 100V into a Medium box (with styrofoam), I would have no issues shipping an R-390 or most any  other radio in one.  I wouldn’t drop  one of these from 10 feet and wouldn’t do that with a wood crate either ;)

The Medium Kubox is actually a bit large for some radios, but it is possible to order boxes with custom internal dimensions.  Of course, it costs more.

I have no connection to Kubox (http://thekubox.com <http://thekubox.com/>) other than being a user, but I’m pretty well impressed with the quality of the product.

Grant NQ5T




> On Aug 28, 2015, at 4:46 PM, Charles Steinmetz <csteinmetz at yandex.com> wrote:
> 
> Dave wrote:
> 
>> It is made of heavy fiberboard and held together with screws.  Can
>> be disassembled to ship flat too.  Price quoted was about $125.
> 
> Looking at the photo with some structural engineering skepticism, I'm inclined to say that to properly contain a 100 lb. radio through poor but expected handling, the fasteners should be about double the diameter shown, they should have large washers under the heads, and there should be at least 4x the number shown (better, 8-10x).  Also, what do the screws thread into?  Are they self-tapping screws or wood screws?  (No good, unless they go full-depth into a hardwood 2x2.)  Tee nuts?  OK if there are plenty of fasteners.  Proper nuts with large washers?
> 
> Of course, there is a lot we can't see from the photo, so it could be better than I surmise -- but those are my observations from many years of experience crating heavy stuff for shipment.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Charles
> 
> 
> 
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