Any tips on shipping a guitar amp?

[RABid]

I'm a drummer turned keyboardist that played guitar in my first garage band. In my first really good band I played keyboards and the guitarist had a Mesa Boogie. 35 year later I bought a nice Mark V 12" combo with pedal board and cover. When I got it, it took about 10 minutes to realize my mistake. This thing was too big and deep for me. I'm an amateur on guitar and I need an amateur's amp. So for the last 4 or 5 years it has sit in the corner of my living room with maybe an hour of play time. I have not sold it because there is no market in my small town for something like that and shipping something that heavy...

 

Well, it is time to let it go. The money can go towards that expensive MacBook Pro that I would get more use out of. Does anyone have tips on shipping a heavy, expensive guitar amp? I have no desire to take it to the UPS store and pay them $500 to ship it. I don't even know where to find a good, heavy box. The boxes I get from Amazon seem pretty thin.

[KuruPrionz]

If there are any local appliance stores, see if they will give you a box. Some "box stores" may allow you to have cardboard and others have already used a crusher to make cubes wrapped with steel bands, no use and no can have!

 

Often they break them down and recycle them, they might let you take something from there. 

Washers, dryers and such come in boxes and the cardboard is much thicker - sometimes double or triple ply. If they have any "corners", get all of them that you can. You'll need 8, one for each corner but choose the best ones out of what you grab and toss the rest after you're done. 

Get too much cardboard, you want to double box that amp. 

 

Custom fit the first box so it is tight and snug on the entire amp. With a Mesa, I'd leave the tubes in place. They have great sockets, the larger tubes have clips on the sockets and they put that aluminum bar across the back to protect the tubes from impact. You'll need heavy duty packing tape, better to use too much tape than too little. Tape the first box tightly to the amp, first across all seams and then along them. If you can't get corners then make them out of the same heavy cardboard. 

 

Get some heavy foam packing material "sheets or rolls" or heavy duty bubble wrap. So not use cheap stuff and do NOT use styrofoam "peanuts"!!!!!

Tightly wrap the first amp box in the foam or bubble wrap, you want at least an inch of substantial padding everywhere. 

 

Then make a second box that is a tight fit over the padding. Tape that everywhere in all directions. You could easily use up 2 rolls of packing tape, it's worth the effort. 

Be aware that most shippers will not back their insurance unless they pack the item themselves so don't spend too much on insurance. Sounds counter-intuitive but they'll use any excuse to avoid making good on a damage claim.

 

I shipped a Mesa Blue Angel across the country and somebody working for USPS dropped it on a corner so the customer sent it back. I was told that since I didn't have the box packaged by "professionals" that there was no valid insurance claim. Straight up hosed me, but at least that was the only time I had a problem. I fixed the damage and sold it locally, luckily Bellingham has a good music scene and pre-Covid Canadians would come down here and buy stuff too. 

 

I've shipped a few amps, been an eBay seller since 2000 with almost 1000 feedback at 100% positive. Pack for war!!!! 

 

Those are nice amps, I've owned 9 Mesa amps and now I own none. Too many knobs but the real sticker is that tubes are simply no reliable - period. 

I no longer use tube amps, I've had tubes fail at shows - the straw that broke the camel's back was a New Years Eve gig and 10 minutes before show time my Red Plate Blues Machine suddenly dropped to about 1/3 the output and it sounded "pretty ok" instead of fantastic. I made it through the show and proceeded to sell all my tube gear. 

 

I can recommend the Peavey Vypyr stuff from the VIP series or the latest iterations. I'd recommend you get the one in the middle of the line, 12" speaker but not too big or too heavy like the top of the line. Turn the "Post Gain" knob way up if you want to get a great "tube" tone - Transtube is a great circuit.

I can also recommend the Boss Katana amps, I had the 100 combo from the first series and now I have the Boss Katana 50 MKII. Those are good sounding amps and you can tweak them with the free Boss software. Just plug the amp on with a USB cord and you can create your own presets on the computer. Great feature and pretty simple to use. 

[Bluesape]

That's a high end amp. There must be Youtube tutorials on how to play with the settings to get your desired sound. It's a forever unit that you'll miss as you advance on guitar.  Yes, it's heavy but no SS amp is gonna match its capabilities. The holy grail tones are in there, just gotta dial them in.

[Sharkman]

I used to be an Ebay Power Seller until PayPal banned me for life (but that's another story for another day).  I have shipped all sorts of things all over the country, as well as all over the world.  The term I like to use for packages that I ship out is "kickproof".  Imagine some guy is working for the shipping company (Postal Service, UPS, Fedex, DHL, whatever).  He hates the world, he thinks the world hates him back, and he's going to take his frustrations out by kicking the box that you shipped out.  Kuru gave some excellent advice, based upon his experience.  And don't be chintzy with the packing tape.  Use as much as you need to in order to prevent your box from accidentally popping open.  I've had boxes shipped to me from China that were so heavily wrapped in tape that it took me a few minutes with a razor blade to finally open the box.  But everything inside was safe and secure, so I didn't complain.

[KuruPrionz]

5 hours ago, Bluesape said:

That's a high end amp. There must be Youtube tutorials on how to play with the settings to get your desired sound. It's a forever unit that you'll miss as you advance on guitar.  Yes, it's heavy but no SS amp is gonna match its capabilities. The holy grail tones are in there, just gotta dial them in.

Yes, it is a high end amp. I've owned 9 Mesas, two of them were Subway Blues, the rest were all different, MkIII Simul-Class, Maverick, Blue Angel etc, etc. 

The amps are very well made and will last a life time. It takes a while to realize that most of the knobs are interactive, change one setting and you have to re-tweak others, which is a slowly tightening circle until you find your happy place.

 

When you have V1 (first preamp tube in the MK III head) go south and end up borrowing a horrible sounding Gallien-Kruger guitar amp to get through a show, that's discouraging. When tube failures happen 3 or 4 times, it's no longer discouraging, it's like realizing that you are taking a risk every time you play and maybe you don't really want to have 2 backups (1 is none and 2 is one) just so you can play another local bar gig, then you switch to solid state and have zero failures and that's the end of that. 

[Caevan O’Shite]

9 hours ago, Bluesape said:

That's a high end amp. There must be Youtube tutorials on how to play with the settings to get your desired sound. It's a forever unit that you'll miss as you advance on guitar.  Yes, it's heavy but no SS amp is gonna match its capabilities. The holy grail tones are in there, just gotta dial them in.

Truth.

 

4 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

When you have V1 (first preamp tube in the MK III head) go south and end up borrowing a horrible sounding Gallien-Kruger guitar amp to get through a show, that's discouraging. When tube failures happen 3 or 4 times, it's no longer discouraging, it's like realizing that you are taking a risk every time you play and maybe you don't really want to have 2 backups (1 is none and 2 is one) just so you can play another local bar gig, then you switch to solid state and have zero failures and that's the end of that. 

Also truth.

I love tube-amps, but when the time comes, I'll be glad to have the excellent, very viable option of going Direct to a PA and monitors via my Strymon Iridium and ART DUALZDirect passive DI for Balanced XLR outs...