Packaging by product type

Most packaging advice assumes rectangular boxes on a rectangular pallet. Plenty of freight is not that. Round, flexible, and wheeled freight each fail in their own specific way, and each has a known fix.

If your freight is boxes on a pallet, the guidance you want is in Boxes and cushioning and Stacking and securing the load. This page covers everything else.

Bags

Bags are flexible, which means they take the shape of whatever is around them, including the gaps in your pallet.

• Interlock them, do not column stack them. This is the opposite of the advice for boxes. Bags have no corners to align, so the only stability available comes from tying the layers together.
• Use a fiberboard bottom tray. A tray, or a tray and sleeve combination, needs to rise at least 20 inches up from the pallet. That barrier is what protects the bags from punctures by adjacent freight and by material handling equipment.
• Watch the pallet deck spacing. Bags sag. If the gaps between deck boards are too wide, the bags droop through and end up in the path of the fork tines.
• No overhang at all. A bag hanging over the edge of the pallet rests on the sharp edge of the deck board and gets cut open by ordinary handling.
• Wrap the outside. Bags without a corrugated wrap around the load are much more likely to be damaged by contact with the mast of a forklift.

Buckets and pails

A pail carries all its weight on a narrow rim, so the whole design question is what that rim is standing on.

• Support the base properly. The rim has to bear on pallet deck boards or on a stiff slip sheet. A pail whose rim spans a gap will collapse or tip.
• Three layers is the sensible maximum.
• Use extra stretch film. Round containers need more film than boxes to stay put.
• Add a top frame before you strap. Without one, the strap simply slides off the domed lids.

Drums

Drums combine every difficulty: they are round, they are heavy, and they touch the pallet across a small area.

• Chock in both directions. Length and width, so the drum cannot start moving at all.
• Support heavy drums on at least two stringers. Anything over 35 gallons or 300 lb needs that, or the deck boards will fail.
• Use plenty of film with a lot of overlap. More than 75 percent overlap is recommended to stabilize drums, and stretch roping helps. Pick a film that will not tear on the pallet corners.
• Strap generously. Strap the drums together with at least three straps, and secure them to the pallet with at least two straps in each of the length and width directions.
• Watch for nesting. Poorly stabilized drums start to settle into each other, which makes the strapping and film go slack and lets everything shift.

Reels

Reels want to roll, and once they start they take the packaging apart.

• Ship them flat if the product allows it. Laid on a pallet, chocked and strapped in both directions, a reel cannot roll. This is the simplest safe answer.
• Protect the product on the reel with board lagging, plywood lagging, or a corrugated wrap.
• Support on at least two stringers. A reel resting on a single center stringer will break the deck boards. If the outer stringers do not carry it, you need two center stringers.
• Chock on top as well. Chocks above the reel stop the straps sliding off its radius, exactly as a top frame does on a drum.
• Bottom deck boards keep the strapping in place. Without them, a strap slides along the stringer and the reel shifts even while the strap still looks tight.
• Reels off a pallet and wider than 39 inches are exposed to being hit by fork tines.

If a reel genuinely cannot ship on its side, that has to be marked on the freight itself and stated on the Bill of Lading, because there is no other way for anyone downstream to know. Cradles are an option, but a cradle that does not extend to the full radius of the reel makes fork access difficult and often leaves the reel exposed to tine impact.

Freight on legs, casters, or wheels

Legs, casters, and wheels are designed for a smooth floor and a gentle push. They are not designed for the forces in a trailer, and shipping with the weight resting on them is asking for a claim.

If the legs or wheels have to stay on, there are four ways to make it work:

1. Better decking

   Thicker boards, wider boards, or a denser species of lumber, so the point loads are spread rather than punched through.

2. Stringers under the feet

   Add stringers directly beneath each foot, so the load goes into a stringer rather than into the span of a deck board.

3. Block the freight up

   Lift the freight so the casters hang free, then chock it in both directions. This also leaves side access so a forklift can get the freight off the pallet at the other end.

4. A closed-edge pallet

   Plug the stringer ends so fork tines cannot enter where the wheels are, and run outer stringers to shield them. The outer stringers also give you something to attach crate struts to.

Products shipped without a pallet at all are exposed to fork tine damage on the underside, whatever they are standing on.

That is the end of the numbered series. If you need the item numbers, test methods, and strength tables behind any of it, they are collected in Packaging standards and specs.