Shipping equipment (was: Re: Prepare to chuckle...)

All, I have had pretty good experience of shipping between the Australia and the UK - as a whole. Although I did the packing. First was an Alpha in a PC case, external cdrom and external DLT drive. All arrived okay. The Alpha was in an appropriate tower box with some close enough polystyrene to keep it from moving. The DLT and cdrom were in separate boxes, surrounded by books to keep anything contents were fine. The last package was a some of books and QIC tapes. These were in a plastic crate, which in turn was placed in a large plastic bag and everything taped well closed so that there was nothing to snag. When it arrived in the UK, the plastic box had obviously been dropped or had a lot stacked on top of it - the base was shattered. The shipping company had kindly put straps around the box for me to hold it together. None of the contents received any physical damage. Oh, and I have managed to get a lead crystal jug from Heathrow to Perth International in my checked in backpack without any damage. So far I have worked on the assumption that free space / air is the enemy. Everything needs to be held into place so it can not move - ideally with something that has a bit, but not a lot of give for the more extreme impacts. Simon -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is the utility of the final product." Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh