Crate spec ticket
| Base | Skid with runners sized to the machine's gross weight |
|---|---|
| Walls | Sheathed or cleated plywood, open slat for dry domestic runs |
| Hold-down | Lag bolts through the machine's own foot holes, blocking and bracing |
| Moisture | VCI film, desiccant, sealed barrier bag for ocean |
| Lumber | HT-stamped for export, plywood panels exempt under ISPM 15 |
| Marks | Centre-of-gravity, this-side-up, lift points, ISO 780 pictograms |
| Quote needs | L x W x H in inches, gross weight in pounds, destination |
What machine builders put in a crate
A machine builder's shipping dock sees a wide range of loads. Vertical machining centres, lathes, press brakes, injection moulding presses, bottling and packaging lines, conveyors, weld cells and the control cabinets that run them all leave the floor on a skid. Some go whole. Others split into base, column, table and enclosure so the pieces fit a container door or a flatbed.
Each of those pieces has a different crate. A compact machining centre usually gets a fully sheathed crate with the machine bolted down. A conveyor section may ride in a long, narrow slatted crate. Control cabinets and pendants travel in their own padded box inside the main load or in a separate cleated plywood crate.
Our machinery page covers the packing steps in detail, and the molds and dies page covers the dense tooling that often ships alongside a machine.
Specifications the crate is held to
For general industrial freight, the standards worth naming are ASTM D6039 for open and covered wood crates and ASTM D6251 for wood-cleated panelboard boxes. They describe how a crate's members are sized, joined and fastened, and many buyers cite one of them in a purchase order. We build to the standard your purchase order or customer packaging requirement names. If it names none, we write the spec ourselves and show you the member list before cutting.
We do not hold third-party certifications to offer here, and we do not claim any. What we do is read the packaging clause in your contract, match the crate to it, and record the result so the same crate can be rebuilt on the next order.
Where a customer such as an OEM end user sends its own packaging document, send it with the quote request. That document outranks our defaults.
Securing the machine inside
The machine is held to the skid, not to the walls. Lag bolts pass through the machine's foot holes or through steel angle brackets into the runners, and blocking and bracing keeps the load from shifting under braking, a hard coupling or a rail impact. Tall machines get a strongback up the back of the column so the head cannot rock.
Moving parts are locked or removed before the lid goes on. Axis travel is clamped, tool magazines are emptied, coolant is drained and spindles are capped. Painted castings are wrapped so the crate wall never touches the finish.
Tell us where the lift points are. Forklift pockets in the skid and sling points on the machine should both be marked on the crate, and the centre-of-gravity mark should sit where the machine actually balances, not at the middle of the box.
Lanes, modes and moisture
Machine tools move by truck to a US plant, by ocean container to a distributor overseas, and by air when a replacement spindle or a small controller must be on site quickly. Ocean is where most of the damage comes from, and it is damp damage, not impact. Steel at a bare ground surface rusts in a closed container that has crossed the equator.
Our answer is a VCI film wrap or sealed barrier bag around the machine, desiccant sized to the enclosed volume, and a crate that lets the bag breathe at the lid joint without letting rain in. Our rust prevention guide and desiccant sizing guide give the method.
Texas and California both list machinery manufacturing among their major export categories in the Bureau of Labor Statistics regional export profiles, so many machine builders in those states ship to the Port of Houston or the Port of Los Angeles on a regular cycle.
Export lumber and stamps
Solid wood in an export crate must be heat-treated and carry the ISPM 15 mark. Plywood, OSB and other manufactured panels are exempt from that treatment, which is why many machine crates are built from cleated plywood with HT-stamped skids and cleats. Each solid piece is stamped by the facility that treated it, and the finished crate carries the IPPC stamp on at least two opposite sides.
If you send us a used crate to reuse, tell us at the quote. A crate that has been repaired with new boards needs those boards marked HT by their own source, and we will not promise a treatment mark on repaired lumber without that.
Whether the destination requires the mark is a question for APHIS and the plant-protection authority in that country, not for us. We build export crates with the stamp as a default so the question does not hold up the load at a port.
How a program fits one-off and repeat models
A builder with a one-off special needs a crate engineered from the drawing. A builder with a catalogue model needs the same crate every time, at a predictable cost. We handle both the same way: write the spec once, keep it on file with the model number, and rebuild it on each order.
Standing orders work best when you give us a forecast by model rather than a single quantity. Let us know the shipping months and whether units go out in a batch of several or one at a time. That decides whether we build ahead or build to each release.
For service parts and spindles that move often in small numbers, standard-size crates cut the cost per shipment.
Questions buyers ask
Do you build to ASTM D6039 for machine crates?
We build to ASTM D6039 or D6251 practice when your purchase order or customer packaging requirement names one, and we show the member list for approval first. If neither is named we write the spec from the load's weight and dimensions.
Can a machine ship fully assembled in one crate?
Often yes, provided the crate clears the container door or the flatbed height limit with the skid underneath. Send inside dimensions and gross weight; if the height is the problem we will suggest splitting off the column or the control cabinet.
What stops a machine rusting on an ocean voyage?
A VCI film or sealed barrier bag, desiccant matched to the enclosed volume, and a crate lid detail that keeps liquid water out. Bare steel ways, spindles and tables are also coated before the bag goes on.
Do you reuse crates on repeat orders?
The spec is kept on file so a repeat order is built the same way. Where a returned crate is sound we can inspect it for reuse, but any replaced boards need their own HT mark for export.