I just wanted to ask more experienced members for ideas on shipping playfield and back glass. I wonder how pinballlife.com does it? Is it necessary to build a wooden crate or would foam and cardboard with hard corners be enough?  What about carriers?  I have had a few inquiries about shipping my playfield glass (must be a good price then), but I am having a hard time contemplating a method that isn't more expensive than the glass itself.

Thanks in advance.

I had a backglass shipped to me once..

It was bubble wrapped and placed in sturdy cardboard box. That box was then placed in a larger box and insolated with popcorn styrofoam. The whole thing was then wrapped in plastic.
It took about a hour to open but the glass was perfect inside.

Adam

thanks Adam, it makes sense that it's "floated" inside a big "bubble" since it is a sharp tap to the edge of tempered glass that will shatter it.  

We made a wood box - some cheap plywood, and the cheap white styrofoam 1" stuff.   The glass arrived unharmed to the US on basic postage.  It was a beast - and I guess making a plywood box each time would be prohibitive.

I once bought a backglass from Mayfair, they wrapped it in styrofoam and cardboard and shipped it through UPS, cost me a fortune in shipping and customs fees but the glass was intact.

if you break it all up it'll fit in a box pretty nicely  

Quoted from machine.slave

if you break it all up it'll fit in a box pretty nicely  

You forgot the part about including a bottle of instant super glue.  

Although I haven't used this option before you might want to check with the bus lines, Grey Goose or Greyhound on their shipping rates for playfields and playfield glasses as I heard they have pretty good shipping rates and they might ship items like this.  Just an idea that hasn't been mentioned and one that might be cost effective.

                                                        flashman

I had one shipped in a big box ... with a handfull of popcorn styrofoam with plenty of room to move ...

it broke.


The next one came from switzerland and was shipped as turorg described and was intact.

Thank you for the advice, I have been swamped with my regular work leading up to CHristmas, but I've taken a three weeks off over the holidays so that I can research this more, so I can set up my store at pinballisnotdead.com and finalize arrangements with various suppliers for Novus2, lights, etc. and launch into the pin parts business.

If you are going to ship tempered glass, tell purchasers to not open package until it is around the same temperature as the place it is in.  If you take a piece of tempered glass that is at freezing temperatures and bring it into your house due to extreme temperature change lots of rice crispies.  True story happened to me.  Not exactly on topic but felt it might be useful info.

I think this is good advice on a lot of things (bringing in from cold). It would be an indication of how well tempered the glass was, and how extreme the temperature change was (Manitoba winter temps are a lot different than Toronto winter temps for example).  Apparently glass that isn't well tempered will be more susceptible to this kind of stress.  But in general tempered glass is pretty good about temperature changes (think of car window glass or store window glass).