Shipping Expensive Bows

[Minuteman]

With the gas prices so high I decided to fly out for my Montana pronghorn hunt this september. Trouble was the cases I needed to protect my bow and arrows from the airlines were gonna offset the savings the flight was supposed to get me. So I looked around a bit and found that you can get a 10 foot stick of 6" sewer line for around 25$ at Menards( home depot,lowes whatever).  Cut one piece long enough for my longest selfbow and cut the left over piece 3 feet long for arrows and I just saved roughly 120$!My 60" recurve fits right down inside the tube no problem. Depending on what kinda bow quiver you have you may have to remove it if you wanna ship it as well.
 Wooden ends cut froma 1x8 and screwed on through the side of the pipe and some 2" foam padding and its bomb proof.
 Course if its only goin one way it might be better to get a carpet tube from a arpet place. Get some padding there too while yer at it.
 Chris

[Shawn Leonard]

Orion, when they say USPS they did not mean "Brown, it stands for United States Postal Service, just some info and you seemed confused. USPS is the way to go, but they are tough to get to pay claims, but so are the other shippers too! Shawn

[mmgrode]

I've personally had bad experiences with UPS both domestic and overseas. IMO USPS is the only way to go. Cheers, Matt

[Dick in Seattle]

OK... for recurves... which really are a bear to ship.  I used to have a collection of vintage target recurves, and selling those and shipping them when I gave it up for longbows (the only way to fly... when will the rest of you learn?) was a real ordeal.  

I made cardboard boxes out of many an appliance box.   Neat tool trick... get a plastic pizza cutter.  Work out the dimensions you need and mark where the folds will have to come.  Use a long 1x2 as a straight edge and compress the cardboard on the INSIDE of the fold by running the pizza cutter over the line, pressing down hard.  The plastic cutter won't cut the cardboard, but will make a compression that controls the fold.

Now, if you want to do it right, you'll spend more money, but it's worth it.    go to a good lumber yard and buy some 1 x 3's and a sheet of 1/8" plywood called "doorskin".   Using the 1x3, build a frame just big enough for the bow and some padding.  Cut a rectangle of door skin and nail/glue to the bottom of the frame.  Pad the bow and put it in.  Screw a top on the box you've built.   Pay what it takes to ship it.  For a recurve, it will be oversize.   so, the bow cost $1000 and it costs $50 to ship it... worth it?   You decide.

Here are a couple of pics of a take down bow I just shipped to The Netherlands last week:

 

 

Dick in Seattle

[Seeking Trad Deer]

I wimped out and made the long drive early this morning to the bowyer.  Just got too worried to mail this one piece recurve.  I'll probably pick it up in a couple weeks too.  The $1,200 bow took me a while to save for and it the most expensive piece of equipment I own...I don't want to have my own horror shipping story to share with others some day.