Shipping crate for artwork.

[atgcpaul]

For most of our marriage, the artwork in our house consisted of posters from art museums in inexpensive frames. We downsized quite a bit when we moved overseas, but have been buying various art pieces on our travels. Now some items are in storage and others travel with us, but at some point everything will be reunited when we move back to the US.

The art in Central America is vibrant, and we've gravitated towards art that celebrates daily life or the area's natural beauty. We were at the airport last summer flying back to the US when my wife spotted a painting she really admired. I took a picture and zoomed in on the artist's name. Some searching revealed it was from a local artist, but I couldn't find his contact information although it was painted within the past 10 years. Ironically, his art was on display in a gallery in the Middle East where we used to live. I posted a picture of the painting on a local FB group, and within a few hours, a family friend passed me his information. My wife made contact, and commissioned a piece from him.

Well, this summer we move back to the US. That will be move #4 and we haven't had anything get damaged in transit--yet. Since the painting was substantially more than those posters, I didn't want the movers to just wrap them in craft paper and cardboard. My biggest worry is that the paint would stick to the paper--especially in the summer--and ruin it. I've been hanging onto all this plywood from the shipping crates so I decided to build a crate that would suspend the painting from its surrounding. I used lumber and strips of plywood to make a frame for each panel where none of the canvas was touched by anything. The painting wraps around the edge of the canvas and I didn't want it to be disturbed. I did have to screw into the back of the painting's frame, though--just in 4 spots.



The painting is a triptych so I had to do this 3 times. Each panel is 21" x 40".



All the frame assemblies were stacked and screwed together and the top and bottom skinned with plywood. Two of the panels face each other and are separated by 3/8" so one panel isn't face to face with the plywood skin. I'll later cut strips of plywood and band the crate with them. Hopefully everything arrives in one piece. I have to make a crate for another painting from a different artist that is about 3'x4



Paul

[leehljp]

I did something similar in our last move. I did not want the movers touching a few of our semi-valuable but delicate items, so I made crates that had them suspended also. No problem. LOML had some valuable china sets and I made a wood container with plenty of insulation all around. Nothing broke.

I don't trust movers (even very reputable ones) with some things.

[capncarl]

Some items in crates need to be secured by aerosol expanding foam. You don’t want things flopping around in the crate secured only by a wad of paper.

[atgcpaul]

I don't trust movers (even very reputable ones) with some things.

I keep, store, and reuse all the original boxes for high value items like TVs, my bike trainer, bikes, Vitamix, kid's digital piano, etc.

I took my Big Green Egg out of storage in the US to bring here. The contracted moving company comes and does a survey to guestimate how much all your stuff will weigh and how many crates, boxes, and movers to send out. She said they'd have to get back to me on the Egg since it would need to be crated. They wanted $500 to build a crate for it! I went to HD the weekend before the move and bought less than $40 materials (before prices went crazy) for my crate. The Egg will go back in the same crate (being used as a BBQ table now) when we come back.