Crating and export crates in Portland

A river city on the Columbia

Portland is a river port. Marine terminals sit on the Willamette and on the Columbia, including Terminal 6 on the Columbia, and the river system carries grain, wood, autos and other commodities by barge. Portland International Airport is the cargo airport, and Union Pacific and BNSF serve the metro by rail. Trucks use I-5 north and south, I-84 east along the Columbia Gorge and I-205 and I-405 around the metro.

Vancouver, Washington, lies across the Columbia and is part of the same freight region. A load that begins in Hillsboro and ends in Rotterdam may cross a river, a state line and several modes of transport before it is unloaded.

Chips, rail cars, ships and wood-products machinery

Washington County, west of Portland, is known for semiconductor manufacturing and for the equipment and suppliers around it. The metro also has a long record in metal fabrication, foundries, rail car and barge building, ship repair, and machinery for sawmills and wood products. Outdoor and technical gear makers use the region too, though that cargo seldom needs wood crates.

The mix gives Portland crates a split personality. Fab equipment wants clean, sheathed crates with indicators; fabrication and foundry loads want solid lumber, bolts and a heavy skid.

• Fab components: sheathed, foam-blocked crates
• Rail and barge parts: heavy open crates
• Sawmill machinery: skid-base crates, strongback
• Castings and weldments: solid-lumber crates with VCI

Barge and rail change the crate

A crate that goes by river barge is loaded and discharged by crane and spends time in damp air. Put lifting points where the crate's frame, not its panels, takes the strain. A load moving by rail ramp needs lashing points on the skid, and the crate must pass the clearance limits the railroad sets, which your forwarder can pass to us.

Rain is the main enemy on this coast. We sheath the roof, give it a drip edge and vent the joints so condensation leaves instead of pooling.

Export wood and plywood

Oregon is a timber state, and local shippers sometimes assume any wood will pass. It does not. ISPM 15 applies to solid wood packaging, requires an approved treatment, and the crate must carry the IPPC mark. NELMA lists heat treatment, methyl bromide, sulphuryl fluoride and dielectric heating as the approved treatments, and exempts plywood, particleboard, OSB, flakeboard and veneer.

Whether your destination applies the rule is a matter for APHIS and the receiving country's plant-protection authority. For overseas lanes we build with HT lumber and stamp the skid and the frame.

Delivery to Portland docks

Crates are built to order and delivered to the shipper's dock throughout the Portland area, including Hillsboro, Gresham, Vancouver and the industrial districts along the river. We hold no yard or facility there. Where a fab or foundry has a narrow door or a crowded dock, a knockdown kit puts the work on your crew at the load.

For a repeat order, such as monthly shipments of machined parts, the spec stays on file and each new crate is built the same way.

Crating oversize loads on the Gorge route

I-84 follows the Columbia River east through the Gorge, and oversize loads from Portland fabricators use it to reach eastern Oregon, Idaho and beyond. A crate that is wide as well as heavy raises permit questions for the carrier, so the width of the finished crate matters as much as its length. Ask the carrier what outside dimensions their permit allows and send us the figure.

Where a piece is too wide to crate whole, it can be built as a knockdown assembly: the load is split at a bolted joint, each half goes in its own crate, and the receiver reassembles it. We mark each half with a matching letter so the pairs do not get mixed up on a crowded dock.

What a Portland quote needs

Begin with the load's inside dimensions in inches and its gross weight in pounds, followed by the destination. If the cargo will touch water on the way, whether by barge, open rail car or a pier, say so. That one fact decides whether we sheath the crate fully or leave an open frame.

Mention the quantity and the date the crate must be at your dock. A series of identical crates, such as a monthly run of machined housings, can be priced on a standing spec.

Handling marks that survive the river

Marks printed on bare wood fade in wet weather. We stencil handling pictograms in paint on a sheathed panel, put the centre-of-gravity mark on two sides, and add a tip indicator where the load cannot lean. Labels go on the panel nearest the forklift's approach, protected by the roof edge.

A receiver unloading a barge at dusk reads the largest mark first. Keep the crate's weight and the lifting instruction big and plain.