Beogram 8000: Packing for Shipment Home

On my previous Beogram 8000 project I packed the turntable using an original Bang & Olufsen Beogram 8000 shipping box plus an outer box. Here are some pictures of that shipment.

In an amazing feat, the shipping company managed to damage the Beogram during shipment. There was no real visible damage to the shipping box so it was assumed that the box was dropped straight down and flat. The impact caused the transform upward so that it knocked the metal door above it off its hinge. On the downward stroke it broke the main Beogram PCB.

Fortunately I had a spare Beogram 8000 main board so I was able to repair the damage. The door hinge was not broken so I reset that. The shipping company insurance paid for all of the damage and shipping costs.

For the return shipment I did some rethinking about the packing. The monster packing box had failed to protect the Beogram in this case and that was with the B&O original Beogram inner box. So how do I improve the odds?

One thing I decided was the double boxing in this case made for an extra large shipping box and was probably difficult to handle. That isn't really an excuse but if I can improve that it should lessen the chance of a drop.

I decided to go to a custom, single box rather than the original B&O box inside an outer box. The new box however is double-wall. Twice the thickness of a normal cardboard shipping box.

The other issue was with the super dense, three inch thick foam. It is very strong but doesn't provide enough cushion. The new box would have dense, polyethylene foam glued to the inside walls and floor of the double-thick cardboard box.

I also decided to custom cut the polyethylene foam to fill the cavities under the dust cover and tonearm compartment lids.

To protect against any impact force driving the transformer anywhere I wrapped the tonearm compartment door completely before wrapping the whole Beogram with firm eggcrate foam.

I used a nice strong vinyl record shipping box to pack up the Beogram platter and put that on top of the foam wrapped Beogram.

Here are some pictures of the new shipping box packing. Of course it begins with locking down the floating chassis for shipment. Here is one of the three lock down screws in the lock position.

Next is making the foam insert to hold down the sub-platter. Note that there is a part of the foam insert that goes into the back of the case where the tangential arm moves. That foam piece prevents any arm movement during transport.

The next picture shows the packing stretch wrap around the Beogram (under the lids and over the lids).  That lid is not able to move at all now.

Now the Beogram is wrapped with a clear plastic bag then wrapped twice with firm eggshell packing foam.

The securely wrapped Beogram is placed in the double-thick box that has the polyethylene padding. Extra polyethylene foam blocks make the fit tight and create storage compartments for anything else included in the shipment (i.e. phono cables).

The platter box is placed on top then covered with another firm foam pad.

The top polyethylene protective foam sheet is placed on top of all of that and the shipping box can be closed up.

This packing method worked out very nice. The overall smaller box dimensions made for an easier box to handle and reduced the shipping cost by $10. I am happy to say this time the Beogram made it safely back to its owner.

For this latest Beogram 8000 project I am using the new shipping box method as well. Another double-thick shipping box with the same foam padding. I changed my wrapping a little bit on this one. With the previous shipment I used packing tape around the eggshell packing foam. This time I used stretch wrap. That made for a little tighter wrap of the Beogram so I had to add another polyethylene foam wall. That resulted in some nicer mini compartments.

The platter box still goes on top of that followed by another eggshell foam piece and the top polyethylene sheet.

This Beogram is safely packed for the journey back home.