I am looking to mail 2 rods.
What service is the best and most cost effective way to do so?

Thanks in advance!

I don't think best and cheap have ever met in my experience. I have had good luck with the US Postal Service.

If you ship them in a triangular cardboard like Mudhole does the UPS cost is much cheaper than if you pack it in a cylinder.

Pack a length of 1x1 inside the tube or container, end to end. The rod should be attached to that. This keeps the rod from shifting in the tube and fracturing the tip area if the tube is slid along the ground and comes to a sudden stop in the transit process. This is actually more common than you might imagine.

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That is a good tip on the tip protection.
My last few orders have all had tips that penetrated the paper stapled to the plastic wrapper. Despite what I thought was good packaging.

Hello All.

Here is an article in RodMaker on shipping.

Volume/Issue........Article...............Author..................Page.
16/1 Shipping Failsafe for Custom Rods. By Bill Colby 22


Tight Wraps & Tighter Lines.

Ask the UPS about cheap.

The length of your package will likely determine the rate you’re quoted. 8’ seems to be the magic number. If the package is under, shipping isn’t too bad, over and it’ll be considerable more.

Francis,
If you happen to live in the Midwest - USA, and are shipping to the Midwest - USA - the cheapest shipper is Speedy!!

Other wise any of the big three - i.e. USPS< UPS< or Fed EX.

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Many years ago, I purchased a plastic bag sealer and place each rod that is to be shipped in its own plastic bag, that is 3 inches in diameter. This allows for any rod - spinning or casting - to be sealed in its own bag. The bag really helps to keep the rod clean, and to isolate each rod from another adjacent rod.

I will normally ship in a 3 inch thin wall pvc pipe. I normally wrap a bubble or similar cushion around the butt, mid section and the tip top.


Take care

At least for myself in my location, as soon as the length of the package - hits 8 feet, there is a penalty fee of about $265 in addition to the standard feed for shipping the rod and or rod blank.

This appears to be true for UPS, USPS, and Fed Ex.

Best wishes.

- do everything possible to keep the total package length under 8'

- Ship in Schedule 40 PVC pipe - its gotten expensive and you're going to toss 2-3 of a length away, but you WILL pay for taking the cheap way out sooner than later otherwise. I've had a 3" thin-wall PVC pipe with a heavy jigging rod get bent in shipment and snap the blank in half - and delivered with just a small crease in the pipe. It will weigh more but weight is not the driver on the shipping cost - length is.....

- ensure the tip of the rod is well protected - and that the rod as a whole is very secure in the pipe without room for movement - bubble-wrap, pool noodles, etc are good options.

- get knock-out test caps plugs for the ends of the pipe - these are thin-ish plastic fit mostly on the ID of the pipe - cost about a $1 at the big box store so way cheaper than a PVC end-cap and does not add length to your package

- insure your package for customer paid cost - take pics of your packaging before it ships, keep copies of your invoices on the rod, and if the package is damaged make sure the customer knows to keep all shipping materials and take pics in the as-arrived state.

- look into ShipStation, Shippo.com, Stamps.com, PirateShip or other for highly discounted shipping rates vs over-the-counter at USPS, UPS or FedEx. I've found UPS to generally be a little be cheaper on rods up to 8' than USPS but your mileage may vary depending on where its shipping to.

Call your local UPS. It costs 1/2 the price if your package is square or triangular.

Francis Santangelo Wrote:
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> I am looking to mail 2 rods.
> What service is the best and most cost effective
> way to do so?
>
> Thanks in advance!


If you do a search, you will see this topic discussed many times with numerous solutions. What you have to watch out for is the conveyors at the airport have turns and will your container survive the turn. Also you have handlers that have been known to heave those long tubes like a Harpoon or javelin, and like they say about falling it is the stopping that hurts.