About packing vinyl records… part xxxxxx

Here I’m going to show how you can, at least, pack records for shipping. I know that everyone has their own secret ways but this is minimum what you can do..

1) Well, here is what we need: mailer, packing tape, bubble wrap, carton stiffeners (carton, cut to size of the record but it’s better cut those cartons little bigger than the cover, choice is yours), some kind of paper knife (Rambo knife and scissors can also do that job) and little extra pieces (thicker the better) of carton for the corners of the record mailer..

——————————————————————————————————————–

2) In this example I use brilliant album (latest) by Cloudkicker (do not worry, I’m not going to sell this one). Take the record out of the cover, this is just to prevent seam splits to form. What seam splits? Well, inside the cover, record use to move during shipping and when it bangs all over inside the cover, it usually split seams from inside. And if you have those blank inner sleeves to spare, use those if your record has printed inner sleeves (those are on the line also during shipment). Seam splits are big problem when record is sealed in shrink-wrap. In those cases, I usually politely ask seller to open shrink and send record and cover separated.

——————————————————————————————————————–

3) Use bubble wrap (lots of it) and wrap it like hell around the record..

——————————————————————————————————————–

4) Use carton stiffeners, place those on both side of the record (and use tape to wrap this whole thing together).

——————————————————————————————————————–

5) And here is the mailer itself (use these regulars if you do not have already those with bumper zones.. I have mentioned about those earlier in my blog).

——————————————————————————————————————–

6) And now we come to the most important part.. using these extra pieces of carton just to secure corners of the mailer (usually corners of the mailer take the most of the damage during shipping). Use packing tape (or glue) to attach these on the corners of the mailer.

——————————————————————————————————————–

7) And here we are. At least you can do it like this, in my opinion. I do not say that this is the best way but this is one step closer to secured shipping of the vinyl record.

——————————————————————————————————————–

And thanks, I hope that this is useful to some of you out there. Feel free to comment on this one.

-MugWumb-