Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Sturdy shipping tube for art

Since my last post, I've moved to Cambridge, MA. The movers damaged two "ink on parchment" (thangkas) I had, and the only repair person I could find is in New York City (btw, it's Alan Farancz Painting Conservation Studio and they do great work). I couldn't find a decent crate to ship the pieces in, and I also couldn't find a larger diameter shipping tube (so the art wouldn't be rolled too tightly), so I made my own:

I made this:
  1. Start with two foot section of six inch pvc pipe
  2. Get a 6" pvc pipe cap, use hacksaw to reduce the depth a bit, just to save a bit of weight and make it less lopsided-feeling. Glue pipe cap on pipe with pvc cement.
  3. Cut three pieces of cardboard circles to form cap at other end. I used wood glue to stick them to each other offset by ~60 degrees so that they support each other.
On the inside, I added foam and used some stiff paper to fill the middle and provide structure so that thangkas didn't collapse on themselves. I rolled everything up using a few layers of thin bubble wrap. Total cost was << $50. The tube itself was $16. Hopefully this is helpful to anyone else who is trying to figure out how to make a sturdy shipping tube.