3 Steps for How To Ship a Guitar Safely With Less Shipping Costs

3 Tips for Ship a Guitar at a Low Price

This article can help you avoid unnecessary losses caused by shipping damage. After reading this article, you will soon master it! I have mailed guitar and ukulele hundreds of times, so far, no problem has occurred.

With the rapid development of the delivery industry, mailing guitars has become an easy task. In addition to businesses, many individuals now also need to mail guitars. For example, college students often want to ship guitars home on holiday, selling used pianos to other buyers.

The other problem is that the guitar is a fragile wooden product. Many packers do not know how to pack the guitar for shipping. Most shipped guitar headstock and bridge will get damaged during the transportation.

Prepare Materials for Shipping a Guitar

First, you need a guitar shipping box. Suppose you keep the guitar shipping box when you buy your guitar. Then you don't need to buy an extra guitar packing box.

It doesn't matter if you threw it away. I will teach you how to ship a guitar without a case. I'm talking about the outer guitar case, not the gig bag. If you lose your gig bag, it is better to get a new one because shipping your guitar in a gig bag can reduce the probability of damaging your guitar.

There are 4 ways to get a guitar shipping box.

● 1. Go to the nearby instrument store to buy one.

● 2. Suppose you can find a large cardboard box (refrigerator packing box/bicycle packing box). In that case, you can use it to hand-make one guitar shipping box. There is a video about how to make a guitar shipping box. You can use it as a reference.

● 3. Order a large shipping box or guitar shipping box online.

● 4. Ask the courier to see if they have suitable packing materials for your guitar.

It would help if you prepared scissors, wide tape, foam board, bubble wrap (you can save some of them when you buy things online).

3 Steps on Pack a Guitar for Shipping

☝ Step 1: You need to loosen the guitar strings. (It can help avoid the high tension of the standard tuning and damage the guitar due to collision during transportation). And then put the guitar in the soft case. It would be best to use bubble wrap to protect the head and neck.

☝ Step 2: Put the guitar in the shipping box. You will find some gaps under the guitar neck. You can use foam sheets to pad it and put some foam sheets on the inner box on several parts.

It can be used as a foam sheet layer on the guitar before sealing the outer box. (If there are accessories, it is best to put them in the gap of the box, do not put them in the guitar bag. Or you can pack them separately to avoid crushing the guitar)

☝ Step 3: Seal the outer box and wrap the shipping box with wide tape. Then take it to the post office or have the couriers come to your door for the pickup. Do remember to ask them to wrap a layer of foam sheet on the outside of the shipping box and attach a fragile label (this It's usually provided for free), and then it is all set!

Other Suggestions for Shipping a Guitar

When buying a guitar, the manufacturer usually will offer a guitar package box. Usually, the box is a right-angle trapezoidal box larger than the guitar body. Such a box is not enough for shipping protection. When you send it to someone, you can put the guitar in the box and then put the bubble wrap to buffer the violent impact in the four arc angles of the guitar.

The most vulnerable part of the guitar is not the front panel and side panels but the neck and headstock. When the top and bottom of the package are squeezed and collide, the neck will burst first.

After finishing stuffing the guitar shipping box, find a solid five-layer corrugated board (at least five-layer board, three-layer corrugated board is not reliable enough), and wrap the guitar perfectly, including the bottom and top seals. Write some notes on the box body: Fragile. It is best to print a bright red prompt in A4.

The key is that the corrugated board should be thick, the most important. The guitar can almost be delivered perfectly with this packaging method. The damage rate can be reduced to less than 0.5%.

How Much Does It Cost to Ship a Guitar?

A typical full-size guitar is around 38 inches long (96.5cm) with a scale length of about 25.5 inches (64.8cm). It varies widely across brands and guitar types. The lbs are in 2-20 and weigh from 0.9 kg to 3.0 kg). Using this data to calculate the shipping rate, we won't get an accurate delivery fee because we need to add the box weight.

You can check how much it costs to ship a guitar USPS on USPS's homepage via this USPS quota here. The best way to get the price estimation is to get a quote from the shipping company. Destination, weight, service type, insurance, extra protection fee, pickup fee are the factors that make the shipping cost vary.

If you want to know how much to ship a guitar with DHL. Check its pricing page here.