Gino wrote in
:

On 15 Dec 2004 16:32:23 GMT, Jim Yanik . wrote:

(Greg) wrote in
news:20041214203201.06298.00001662@mb- m18.aol.com:

Go get some 30 gallon plastic drums and be done with it.

I was just commenting on how people will take an expensive item to be
shipped,and toss it into a box and fill the box with loose styro
peanuts and consider it good enough for shipping.Then they are amazed
to hear that it had been damaged beyond repair because it was packed
poorly.

This time of year when people are shipping Xmas presents,the
"pillow-of- peanuts" technique of packing items is good to know.

Up here in Canada Futureshop is now using little bags (like sandwich
bags) filled with air instead of peanuts.

Those bags could be punctured and deflate.Or have a slow leak and
deflate.That means no protection.Even bubble wrap has MANY cells,so loss of
a few does not matter.

Puncture all the peanut-pillows and it doesn't matter;No effect.


My telescope came packed in a solid block of brown expanded foam.
We have a local high end chromer who uses a white expanded foam to
ship his stuff.
They do a lot of custom motorcycle chrome work.


We had custom expanding foam packing(InstaPak) at my TEK field offices,and
there always was the possibility of foam sticking to the item,permanently
ruining it,or too much foam crushing the item upon expansion,or it
squirting out any opening in the box,or splitting the box.It's messy stuff
to work with.
We received lots of packages with loose peanuts,so making peanut-pillows
was a great way of recycling them,and cheaper than using the expanding
foam,or cutting pieces of regular foam to fit.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik-at-kua.net