"Frank Boettcher" wrote in message
The package design has been ISTA tested with the appropriate inclined
plane, straight drop and vibrations tests at an independent lab. It
holds a transit tested rating. Even so, trunions would ocasionally
break in shipment even when the package looked fine on arrival.

In testing to try to find out why they were breaking the only way the
trunions could be broken was to tip the unit over and have it land
solidly on the front table edge. When this happened there was no
packaging damage, the internal damage was concealed. You can't imagine
how many sets I've observed broken during that testing process. It is
kind of sickening to keep tipping a saw over just to see if you could
get a statistical read on what would break.

Changes made a number of years ago were to specifically address this
issue. The red motor strap was removed, not to save money but because
it was creating another problem. freight dock drivers would drive up
on a running pickup and slam fork lift masts into the relatively
unprotected end bell of the motor, breaking the end bell and sometimes
the motor bracket. The change was to drop the motor down as far into
the cabinet as possible, supporting it on the dust chute, to protect
it and also to lower the center of gravity to make tip overs less
likely.

A device called a tilt watch was added to the package alerting a
distributor to not accept the package from the freight carrier if the
device had been activated. The only way it could be activated is if
the freight dock person had tipped it over.

The only design change on the trunion brackets and trunions was to
increase the cross sections where there was breakage and to increase
any radii to eliminate the notch effect on impact. There has been no
reduction in the specifications for chemical or mechanical properties
of the iron as was suggested in some old threads.

There were a number of other changes to the pack to improve the
shippability. And after any change the unit was transit tested again
by an independent lab.

Thank you, Frank, for verifying what I said about inadequate packaging..
ISTA standards just don't always hold up to real life situations that occur
every day.

Delta evidently was, smart enough to find and correct the problem. It is a
shame they had to take so many "hits" on reputation from customers in the
meantime. They did both, improve the package and the product. Good for
them. Tipping is a problem with high center of gravity products. Forklifts
do slam into the side of pallets. Changing he orientation or a larger
pallet fixes that in most cases.