Mailing a bow question

[Woody roberts]

I’m in Missouri and my son lives in Florida. The whole bunch flew up last week to show us the new boy. The other three grandkids will stay for the summer. We sent a good many arrows down range while he was here.
I’m gonna mail him one of my bows. What is the best way?
Thinking about a piece of thin wall pvc

[Kidder]

That’s exactly how I’ve done it. Wrap it in some padding of some kind, pack it in a pvc pipe and make sure it has padding on each end. I just taped it up with duct tape. If it’s not fine in that it won’t be in anything.

[Hawkdancer]

Plus 1!
Hawkdancer

[organic_archer]

I ship many bows around the world each year and have tried all kinds of methods. There’s nothing better than a tube in my opinion. The postal systems are NOT gentle with things, regardless of whether or not there is a “fragile” sticker on them. Tubes are easy to work with and the most structurally sound.

After having thousands of dollars of products damaged in boxes and even custom-built wooden shipping crates, I switched to tubes and haven’t had a single damage issue since. Many carpet stores will give you 4” tubes for free. Vinyl graphic/decal stores will give you tubes for free as well. If you’re not near any of those, you can get them online fairly cheap.

[JW_Halverson]

I raid the dumpster behind the carpet store and grab their cardboard tubes. Saw to length with a few extra inches to stuff packing or styrofoam to cushion.

I use a jig saw to cut out a wooden circle that just fits inside, and run a few screws through the sidewall of the tub into the wood plug.

So far, I have shipped at least two dozen like this and no failures. Fingers crossed.

[Pat B]

I use PVC pipe and ship Priority Mail. I was told by a postal agent that with Priority Mail fewer people touch the package and it's usually at it's destination in 2 to 3 or so days. You automatically get $50 insurance too. Hard to get much more for a selfbow if it gets damaged. I've never had a bow(or any package) lost or damages shipping USPS Priority Mail.

[Eric Krewson]

It may sound crooked but it protects the buyer as well as myself. When I ship a bow I put a detailed bill of sale in the package to establish value along with a "care and feeding guide for the bow", all very professional looking. On the bill of sale I give detailed specifications for the bow, mark it "paid in full" and a hand written "thank you for your payment". I also add the cost of shipping to the price of a bow but not state it as such. I feel if the post office destroys the bow they should reimburse me for what they charged me.

I put the same bill of sale in the box for bows that I give away, I don't pad the bill and state the value exactly as it would be if I was selling the bow.

I had the post office destroy one osage bow for me, with the bill of sale establishing the value the post office settled my claim in less than two weeks and sent me a check for the amount stated on the bill of sale. This bow was not a freebie, the customer got back what he paid for the bow.

I too am a fan of carpet tubes for bow shipping, I have mailed out about 50 bows with only one damaged. One time I mailed a heavy osage stave and didn't insure it, the post office broke it in two and it was 4" across the back.

[JW_Halverson]

It may sound crooked but it protects the buyer as well as myself. When I ship a bow I put a detailed bill of sale in the package to establish value along with a "care and feeding guide for the bow", all very professional looking. On the bill of sale I give detailed specifications for the bow, mark it "paid in full" and a hand written "thank you for your payment". I also add the cost of shipping to the price of a bow but not state it as such. I feel if the post office destroys the bow they should reimburse me for what they charged me.

I put the same bill of sale in the box for bows that I give away, I don't pad the bill and state the value exactly as it would be if I was selling the bow.

I had the post office destroy one osage bow for me, with the bill of sale establishing the value the post office settled my claim in less than two weeks and sent me a check for the amount stated on the bill of sale. This bow was not a freebie, the customer got back what he paid for the bow.

I too am a fan of carpet tubes for bow shipping, I have mailed out about 50 bows with only one damaged. One time I mailed a heavy osage stave and didn't insure it, the post office broke it in two and it was 4" across the back.

I can just see two postal employees out back, one says "It's osage, this stuff is super tough". And the other guy took it as a challenge.

[bradsmith2010]

I have used pvc with positive results,,