Crating and export crates in the San Francisco Bay Area

Oakland, SFO and the bridges between

The Bay Area's container port is Oakland, on the east side of San Francisco Bay, where trucks reach the terminals from I-880, I-80 and the Port's approach roads. Rail ramps at Oakland link to Union Pacific and BNSF lines heading east. SFO is the largest cargo airport on the peninsula, with Oakland and San Jose airports adding capacity.

Freight crosses the bay by bridge: the Bay Bridge, the San Mateo-Hayward and Dumbarton bridges, and the Carquinez and Benicia bridges to the north. A truck from a Fremont plant to SFO runs along I-880 and US-101, and the lanes are busy enough that a crate must be scheduled for its pickup window and not for the hour it happens to be ready.

Semiconductor equipment and instruments

Silicon Valley is known for semiconductor equipment, electronics, data center hardware and scientific instruments, with biotech and medical devices alongside. The loads are expensive, delicate and rarely heavy relative to their cube. A wafer-processing tool, a vacuum chamber or an inspection system comes on its own frame and often has factory-supplied shipping brackets.

That mix reverses the usual crating rule. In heavy machinery the wood is structure; here the wood is a protective shell around a frame whose own precision matters more than the crate's strength. Even so, a tool of this kind still needs a proper skid, runners that clear the forks, and sides that never touch the tool.

Keeping delicate loads clean and still

Most tool shipments start with a bag. The load is wrapped in anti-static or cleanroom film, sealed with desiccant, and set on foam-faced blocking before the crate goes on. The wood itself is separated from the bag by foam so splinters and dust cannot work their way in.

Shock and tilt are controlled with indicators. We fit a tip indicator and a shock indicator to the outside, and where the customer wants it, a humidity card inside a window panel. A strongback runs the length of the base so the load does not flex when the forklift lifts one end first.

• Tool frames: crate base bolted through to the factory brackets
• Lab instruments: foam-faced cleated plywood crates
• Server racks: strongback frames, front and rear bracing
• Chambers and gas cabinets: sheathed crates, upright marks

Why the lumber matters less than the stamp

A Bay Area exporter shipping to Asia or Europe wants no delay at the other end. Plywood, particleboard and OSB are exempt from ISPM 15 under NELMA's summary of the standard, so a plywood-sheathed crate on a solid sawn skid can often meet the export rule with only the skid stamped. Whether it does for your shipment depends on the destination, which APHIS and the destination's plant-protection authority confirm.

If you ship by air and ocean from the same plant, tell us. A crate sized for a vessel is usually too heavy to fly, and we draw two specs from one tool where that helps.

Delivery across the Bay Area

We build crates to order and deliver them to the shipper's dock throughout the Bay Area, from San Francisco and Oakland to Fremont, Santa Clara and San Jose. There is no yard or facility of ours in the region. Because many fabs and labs have dock doors that fit a pallet but not a finished crate, a knockdown kit is a common choice here.

Panels are numbered, the base arrives first and the load goes on, and the walls and lid follow. Your crew closes the crate at the tool and not in a hallway.

When the crate goes back and forth

Test fixtures, demonstration units and field-service tools go out and come back. For those we build returnable crates with reinforced corners, hinged or latched lids and a stenciled inventory of what lives where. Writing the spec down means the second crate matches the first, and a damaged one can be rebuilt from the same record.

Ask for a returnable spec on the quote if the crate will be used more than once. It costs more to build and saves in the second and third shipment.

Quote notes for Bay Area shippers

Give us the load's inside dimensions in inches, its gross weight in pounds and the destination country, then the quantity and the date needed. For a tool with factory shipping brackets, send a photograph of the bracket locations; the crate base bolts to them.

Say if the receiver's cleanroom has a gowning area or a staging dock where crates are opened. Some sites require outer crates to stay outside, so the inner bagged load travels in without wood.