Shipping?

[milt]

This is a really wonderful forum for a beginner like me who is trying to get into the business of selling prints.  I have read back thru several months of old posts and have learned an enormous amount.  There is such a lot of good practical advice here, and the level of discussion is so much more adult than other forums I have found.  I have become a big fan of this forum.

My question is about how folks who sell prints ship those prints when they are framed or mounted or matted, i.e. when they can't be rolled up into a shipping tube.  I don't plan to become a general purpose framing shop, but I do want to offer the option for gallery wraps and mounted prints (probably as per bill t.'s neat trick of gluing them on gatorboard).

For example, can large framed or mounted prints be shipped safely in flat cardboard boxes?   Or is it necessary above a certain size to ship them in wooden crates?  Also, is there any reason to prefer any of the shipping companies in terms of the frequency of shipping damage to large flat packages like this?  Any relevant advice would be appreciated.  In particular, bill t., how do you ship those large pano's?

Many thanks.

--Milt--

[Gary Brown]

Can large framed or mounted prints be shipped safely in flat cardboard boxes?

See Shipping Your Photographs, which talks about that topic.

[bill t.]

For large pieces I take them down to the UPS Store.  I just shipped a 72 x 30 x 2 framed piece (no glass) halfway across the country for $180 including packaging.  The packaging part of that amount was about $70 of that which may seem like a lot but saved me huge hassles.  Some of those stores are better than others in this regards, first go talk to them and if they seem enthusiastic they're probably OK.

Yes cardboard boxes are OK if you use a lot of foam and maybe two layers of fresh, stiff cardboard.  That assumes plex instead of glass, or no glazing at all in the case of my  framed canvases on Gatorfoam.  I would never recommend shipping a frame with glass.  My wife organizes national art shows and way too many glass covered frames arrive broken, even those in the very expensive Uline art shipping cartons.

[howseth]

I shipped 4 boxes of large wood and plexi-glass frames Fedex Ground, recently (8 pictures total). Cardboard with bubble wrapped and foam cushioning. California instate. They survived intact - but loosened up and had to be put back together at the gallery - I was told.

Howard

[framah]

First, you should consider shipping prints flat instead of in tubes. This keeps the paper flat and lessens the chance of marring the image from rolling. Consider 3 layers of cardboard on each side with the ribbing  at right angles to each layer.

Second,  if you want to ship with glass in the package, then  you really should build a crate for it. I have shipped stuff with glass as far away as Japan and as it was in a wooden box, it got there fine.

If you prefer to trust UPS to pack it then you should use plexi instead.

Always make sure they wrap it with bubble wrap before boxing it.

[wolfnowl]

There's a short comment from John Paul Caponigro on the subject, here.

Mike.

[howseth]

John Paul Caponigro says: 1. Pack your work professionally. Excellent... 2. Use a professional shipping service: if he means an expensive art shipping specialist? ah there's the rub  

Damned if you do - damned if you don't.

Howard

[milt]

Thanks everybody.  A bunch of posts with good, practical advice, all in about 11 hours -- this is a great forum.

I don't want to discourage anybody with on-topic comments to share.  If you have more comments on shipping, please have at it.  However, I do have an off-topic question for bill t. (should you drop by here again).  Your comment about shipping a framed gatorboard-mounted pano raises a question I've been curious about for some time.  Your previous description of your technique for gluing down the canvas talks about making the gatorboard slightly smaller than the canvas and trimming a bit of canvas (and glue) off the edge.  How do you frame a mount like that?  Shouldn't the gatorboard be bigger than the canvas in order to fit the frame?  And if it is bigger, how do you deal with the glue that slops outside the canvas?  Just wipe it up?

(Sorry about the detailed question, but I'm a practical, detail type guy.)

Many thanks.

--Milt--

[BobDavid]

I use the thinnest masonite they sell at Home Depot and sandwich the prints between that; of course, sleeve the prints before doing this. Then sandwich the masonite sandwich in cardboard. Then box it. Works like a charm.

[bill t.]

making the gatorboard slightly smaller than the canvas and trimming a bit of canvas (and glue) off the edge.  How do you frame a mount like that?

I stick the Gator-mounted print in the frame's rabbet just like it was a piece of glass.  Secure with Fletcher Points, every framer's best friend.  You need a rabbet depth of at least 5/16" for the canvas + Gator + Fletcher Point combo, some frames may have less.

When printing I always leave at least 1/2" of white around the image so I have plenty to work with when I roll the canvas out on the slightly smaller, glue-coated Gator.  After mounting I trim the print so I have about 1/8" of white canvas all around the mounted image, which fits comfortably hidden under the frame's lip.  Also I print a 3 pixel Edit->Stroke... border 1/8" outside the image to simplify making the final trim to size, since that usually requires placing the straight edge cutting bar over the image...that's no problem with correctly coated canvas but I bet that gives some of you paper guys the shivers!

[milt]

bill t., thanks for replying.

Your response leaves me a little confused.  Where does the matting go?  Are you talking about framing without using any matting?

--Milt--

[bill t.]

Oh.  Matting.  Don't need no stinkin' mattes!  They just attract fingerprints and blood and are great backgrounds for displaying pieces of dust.

Personally I like the classic look of canvas and frame alone, especially on the big, big pieces.  So do my clients.  The whole prissy matte + glass thing only applies to paper prints, I was so glad to let that stuff go.

If you really want big white spaces around your image use 2 to 5 inch wide linen liners.  Which are basically flat frames covered with cloth.   Hint the oatmeal variety will show off the dust a little less than the pure white type.  If it's good enough for Peter Lik, it's good enough for us.  Please note that is not me, at all, and I consider that a small piece.



Peter cheats for his shiny delicate chemical prints and puts plex either in front of the matte or between the print and the liner.  

See here's my booth at the first of my two recent back-to-back Art Fairs, the one where I DIDN'T catch the Swine Flu, as opposed to the second one.  You dudes can laugh all you want at my classic antique gold mattless frames but please note that I sold 41 large pieces and took 12 more orders and that washed out wonder at upper left won Best of Show at one of the top shows in the country, in direct competition with $10,000 original oil paintings.  Which all goes to prove that what we photographers dote upon and what John Q. Public is moved to buy are different critters entirely.  Ignore the chair, it's not my fault.

[attachment=18194:BillT_Weems_Booth.jpg]

[bradleygibson]

Great post, Bill, thanks!  

Do you have glass or plexi in front of your pieces (if so, do you use spacers to keep it off the print)?  If not, how do you protect the work?

-Brad

[bill t.]

No glass.  No plex.  No spacers.

Just a few good thick coats of ordinary acrylic water-based canvas coatings.  Known to be impervious to New Mexico quality red and green chili sauce and serious fingernail attacks.  Also impervious to most environmental contaminants and humidity.  Does not build up greenhouse temperature swings in bright light.  Wipe it down with a water-moist towel.  A really ferocious swipe with a sharp object may create a scratch that will probably not penetrate to the image, and which can be easily and invisibly fixed with a few drops of acrylic and a small brush.  Anybody who has ever had to trim a mounted, coated canvas doesn't have to ask these kinds of questions.    

[cbcbell]

For more than ten years, I have shipped drawings, paintings and photographs using the state-of-the-art packaging materials sold by Masterpak-USA:

http://www.masterpak-usa.com/hil_01_strong.htm

http://www.airfloatsys.com/shop/index.php?...e=page&id=1

For works with substantial depth, like paintings or framed pieces, the Strongbox (manufactured by Airfloat Systems, Inc.) is the best thing I've ever seen: a heavy corrugated box lined with a sheet of ABS plastic to give it the puncture resistance of plywood, but still quite light weight. Inside, there are multiple layers of die-cut foam which can be customized to the size and shape of the work.

For thin works on paper or photographs, they offer the PrintPad, which is essentially multiple layers of corrugated with the flutes perpendicular to each other, and can also be had with the ABS sheet.

These containers aren't inexpensive, but they are reusable, and even shipping relatively large paintings to Europe, I've never had a problem.

[milt]

@ bill t.
Thanks for a great post, and let me hasten to say that I am not one of those that might be considered to be laughing.  In reading thru older posts in this forum, I have always admired your approach.  I'm not criticizing, I'm liking and eager to find out the details.  Somehow I had not picked up on the detail that you didn't use a mat, so that's why I couldn't put your edge treatment together with framing -- I sort of thought this edge treatment meant you were going frameless, which is an approach that attracts me.  BTW, I'm very impressed with those sales figures.  I can only dream of figures like that.

@cbcbell
Many thanks for the pointers.  I'll look into these companies.  The only company I knew about was Uline.

@Gary Brown.
Many thanks for the pointer to the LL article.  I hadn't picked up on that and its good.

--Milt--