Get ready for an inside look at how LeBlond handles machine shipping — from protecting every metal surface to their signature “load and protect” method that keeps your investment safe from dock to dock.
LeBlond Service Manager Christopher Smith breaks down the different shipping approaches for domestic and international deliveries, showing exactly how they package everything from their popular 1332 Educational Series to heavy-duty RKL-2560 machines.
• Ever wondered what happens when your machine crosses international waters? Chris reveals their special crating process — and trust us, it’s more complex than you’d think
• Peek inside their custom-built accessory crates and see the extra steps they take to protect your gear (moisture-wicking tech included!)
• Get a sneak preview of what’s cooking in the LeBlond workshop, including a mysterious two-speed tailstock project
• HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT: There’s a brand new product line dropping in early 2025 that’s about to shake things up (hint: it drills differently)
Christopher wraps things up with a heartfelt thanks to the amazing LeBlond community and drops some exciting teasers for what’s coming in 2025.
Have questions on LeBlond machine shipping?
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Video Transcript
Guys, Chris Smith here. It’s been a while. November and December are really crazy for us, with everybody getting their end-of-the-year budget, and machines moving out the door like crazy. So we don’t really have a whole lot to show you. What we’re going to talk about today, is how we ship machines, our preferred method, if it’s going back overseas or out of the United States. So first we’ll talk about our preferred method, which is load and protect. What that means, is we put it into the trailer, we strap it down personally, the truck driver never touches it, a security wall goes up, and then a special tag goes on it. So it goes from our dock to your dock. Now, with that you do have to have a loading dock, or if it’s one of our smaller machines like our 1332 Educational Series Machines, are very popular with the schools or gunsmiths, we can put that in sideways and you can pallet-jacket to the back-end of the truck.
So right now, we’ve got this one going out to today, a heavy-duty RKL2560. It is going load and protect. So we just wrap it up like this. Every metal surface, like your bed weights and all that, we spray down with rust preventative oil, just to protect it. If there’s accessories, we build you an accessory crate. This way, nothing gets lost or damaged. So all your accessories will go inside here. We build them to hopefully fit everything, and then stuff it with some bubble wrap to hold everything from bouncing around.
So certainly if you don’t have a loading dock and we’ve got to ship flatbed, we do that as well. With that you’ll get a skeleton crate, which will look like this machine here, this crate. It would just be a skeleton crate, just to protect the machine. And what’s mainly to protect it from, is the tarps, because cause we’re going to have it tarped to protect it from the weather and elements, still sprayed down. So we can do that way for you, or hot shot, if you’re looking for a cheaper way to ship or whatnot. Then we collect, [inaudible 00:02:07] collect, like say it’s going from here in Cincinnati and going out to LA, it’s going to go through so many hubs that we are not really sure of, and who knows who’s moving it, if they know how to move heavy equipment without damaging it. This also just helps protect it, so they don’t run anything, any of the handles, apron, any of that stuff, or whatever the machine is, and then damage it.
Now if it’s leaving the United States, or it’s going back, or say we’re going even to Alaska, it’s going to go on a boat again. To protect it, we put it in a completely enclosed crate with special fumigated wood, because you need that to get it out of the States, like to Mexico and Canada, who we also sell to quite a bit. So it’ll be in a special fumigated crate just like this, where it’s protected, because that’s what government regulations want you to have. It’s also shrink-wrapped for a better seal, some, oh, what do they call those things, moisture-wicking bags to help keep the moisture out of the machine, is what we do there. But we can accommodate whatever the customer wants.
So yeah, like I said, we’ve been pretty busy. We haven’t really been able to get a whole lot to you the last couple months unfortunately. A couple things we’re working on here, last minute. We can go over here, show you what I’m working on, is, because we’re not just machines, we are, big part of [inaudible 00:03:41] LeBlond been around forever, and the parts keeping your LeBlonds going all the way back to 1938. Right now, I’ve been working on a two-speed tailstock for our customer. Trying to get that all together, and you see, it’s a big mess trying to get all the parts and everything and get it built and working the way it should up to our standards.
But again, we would like to thank you guys for taking the time out this year of 2024, and watching our videos, and being very supportive. And letting us help you with questions and even helping us with questions we have. We’ve got quite a bit of customers out there that are pretty knowledgeable, and if I’m having trouble with something, I know I can reach out to you. And it’s just been, the community has just been fantastic, and we can’t thank you enough for that.
So we look forward to showing you what we’ve got coming in 2025. We are introducing a new product line, a Radial Arm Drill Press that we were hoping to have here already for this video, but it got delayed in shipment. So that’ll be here next month, or possibly beginning of February. But we’ll do a video on that, just to show you guys that, and showcase that for you. If you guys have any questions or any kind of input, things you’d like to see, please let us know? So again, thank you and happy new year. We look forward to seeing you again next year, and making things happen. Thank you very much.