Last fall, this beauty came into my life.
As tempted as I was to keep her, I knew that she could fetch a pretty penny. So I brought her home, found a typewriter repair shop and spent a little bit to get her in working order. And then I put her on Etsy. A month later, she sold.
Now for the hard part: Shipping her. What follows, with lots of photos, is how I did it.
I must give credit to this guy, who has a great tutorial on YouTube explaining the basics.
So here we go.
You will need: heavy rubber bands (from the grocery store produce section), plastic cling wrap, lots of bubble wrap, packing peanuts, strapping tape and a good heavy box that is bigger than the typewriter case.
Place a little bit of bubble wrap in the well above the keys so that they don't flip forward and become tangled during shipping.
Use the rubber bands to secure the carriage release in an unlocked position. The weight of the carriage can damage the gears and a tiny mechanism inside the typewriter during shipping. To prevent this, you pull the carriage release forward and secure it in place by wrapping one of those heavy rubber bands around the release. There is a carriage release on both sides so you wrap a rubber band on both sides.
Now hold the carriage back in the center and wrap some plastic cling wrap around the end of the carriage release and then wrap it around the entire typewriter. This is where Mr. VS came in handy because holding all of this is a two-person job. I wrapped the plastic wrap about four or five times around the typewriter, which was enough to secure it but still get it back into its case. Add additional bubble wrap to the front of the typewriter, cushioning the keys. Be sure the lid of the cases closes completely.
Reinforce your heavy-duty box with strapping tape on the bottom I also added some additional cardboard inside the box.
Wrap the typewriter case in bubble wrap. Of course if you don't have a case, you'll have to create one out of cardboard and more bubble wrap. Our You Tube friend explains how to do this as well.
Put a layer of packing peanuts on the bottom of the box. Add the wrapped typewriter in its case and add more packing peanuts all around.
Seal it all up nice and tight with more strapping tape and add several FRAGILE stickers. I also added stickers with the words HEAVY and THIS END UP.
Finally, say a prayer. I was lucky that my shipping experience turned out well. The typewriter got there in one piece and the buyer loves it. Fortunately for me, the typewriter only had to go to New York City and that took just two days from home in Syracuse. If the buyer had been on the West Coast, I think I would have used Fed Ex Ground instead.
Awesome tutorial!!! I'm thinking of selling of few of mine and had no idea if shipping was even a real option!
Posted by: pam | March 22, 2016 at 04:03 PM