Urgent request for US West Coast shipping contacts

[tautech]

 
Exactly as predicted a few weeks ago !
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg3738361/#msg3738361

Great score. 

THz, I'll give my freight forwarder a call tomorrow as he has contacts worldwide.

[Brumby]

^ ^ ^ I'm getting a good vibe from this offer....



Fingers crossed and thumbs pressed.

[jonpaul]

 TerraHertz just joining this interesting thread. BRAVO for your passion and efforts!

I  have assisted a few silent key estates with similar manuals collections.

A few moments for some notes please:

I am sure you have already heard this but I can confirm:

I  can appreciate your intense interest to preserve and acquire these historic manuals, I have a fine collection of TEK, HP, Boonton, Fluke, Wavetek, and the printed manuals are FAR better than the PDFs.

1/ Sea Freight containers are handled roughly via cranes and are never dry inside, despite silica gel, everything to be protected from months of 90% hum needs to be completely sealed.

2/ Stacking the manuals to fit the container height will result in broken bindings etc due to weight and vibrations.

3/ Costs would normally be ~ $3-8K $ but nowadays expect perhaps 10-30K $ US.

4/ Freight forwarders are well booked up months in advance, and will not be capable to carefully pack everything.

Doing all this in a few days and from the other side of the world seems impractical.

I would suggest an alternate method: Try to get a few added months of storage in the existing site.

You fly to SFO, rent a truck and hotel nearby the site, take  a few weeks organizing and doing it exactly as you want, you can easily hire local laborers to assit.

BON CHANCE!

Jon

[tautech]

Exactly as predicted a few weeks ago !
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg3738361/#msg3738361

Great score. 

THz, I'll give my freight forwarder a call tomorrow as he has contacts worldwide.

^ ^ ^ I'm getting a good vibe from this offer....



Fingers crossed and thumbs pressed.

He's an old school buddy and been in the freight business for 40 years so knows a thing or two about such dealings and absolutely nothing surprises him.
Does all our sea and airfreight and Customs clearance as well which is just basic bread and butter to someone of his experience. I used to do some moonlighting for him shifting international band equipment between airports and gigs in some pretty big rigs as he didn't have an HT license.
As a west Auckland petrol head he's sponsored some NZ racers to the Bonneville salt flats and at times before Covid he seemed to always be in the US so knows his way around over there too.
Popped him mail already so we'll see what he comes back with in the morning.

[rsjsouza]

I wish good luck in your ventures, THz! Great library of documentation.

Since time is of the essence (and money seems to not be as tight), you can try to talk to the freight forwarder and explore the possibility of using different ports in Washington or Oregon or even route the cargo through land down to the ports in the south (Florida, Louisianna, Texas) as they are not as backed up as the ones in California.

Also, as jonpaul mentioned, the packing of individual components will be important - when the movers took the entire contents of my house across the Caribbean sea, a great deal of effort was spent to compartmentalize the cargo to properly distribute weight, taking a much larger space on the container than the actual contents. Also, a great deal of effort was spent trying to maintain the contents free of the influence of the elements during transportation (silica gel, sealed packing, etc.)

[voltsandjolts]

Might be cheaper to take a holiday to the US and scan them while you're there!

[TerraHertz]

Exactly as predicted a few weeks ago !
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg3738361/#msg3738361

Ha ha that IS funny. I'm so predictable.

I wish I'd seen that (Oct 10.) But the TEA thread is too much for me. What was the listing price then? I'm not sure when he dropped it to US$99 buy it now.
First I heard of it was a post on https://groups.io/g/HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment/topic/large_lot_of_manuals/86481088
on Oct 21.

Great score. 

Yeah, it's 'win the lottery' great. For someone who thinks the paper manuals are crucial tech-culture history and must be saved.  Plus, I recently have failed to find any copies anywhere of a couple of service manuals I badly need. Emphasizing that these things are rapidly becoming rarer, on the way to completely gone. About a month ago I bought 22 moving boxes full of manuals in Chicago, thinking I saw one of my needed manuals in the seller's pics. HP 8118A. Turns out it was an 8116A in the photos. Blury 6 looking like an 8. But no matter. More manuals the merrier. With those I have a family friend in Chicago handling the shipping. A pallet-load of boxes (and a Tek 576!) soon to be on their way here. But he can't help with the CA pile.

THz, I'll give my freight forwarder a call tomorrow as he has contacts worldwide.

Thanks! Today (Thurs) I've been going through some international moving co's asking for responses. Nothing yet.
You should send him the link to doco: http://everist.org/dm/
There is another copy with all the contact details, if your friend asks for it.

[TerraHertz]

TerraHertz just joining this interesting thread. BRAVO for your passion and efforts!

I  have assisted a few silent key estates with similar manuals collections.

A few moments for some notes please:

I am sure you have already heard this but I can confirm:

I  can appreciate your intense interest to preserve and acquire these historic manuals, I have a fine collection of TEK, HP, Boonton, Fluke, Wavetek, and the printed manuals are FAR better than the PDFs.

1/ Sea Freight containers are handled roughly via cranes and are never dry inside, despite silica gel, everything to be protected from months of 90% hum needs to be completely sealed.

2/ Stacking the manuals to fit the container height will result in broken bindings etc due to weight and vibrations.

3/ Costs would normally be ~ $3-8K $ but nowadays expect perhaps 10-30K $ US.

4/ Freight forwarders are well booked up months in advance, and will not be capable to carefully pack everything.

Doing all this in a few days and from the other side of the world seems impractical.

I would suggest an alternate method: Try to get a few added months of storage in the existing site.

You fly to SFO, rent a truck and hotel nearby the site, take  a few weeks organizing and doing it exactly as you want, you can easily hire local laborers to assit.

BON CHANCE!

Jon

Thanks for the encouragement and observations. But it does seem you didn't read my docs file online. I did mention a lot of those points. All manuals have to be packed in sturdy boxes before stacking, to prevent crush damage. Humidity in containers - I know. I once helped triage a full length shipping container contents (all historical tech docs) that had been left closed up in a field for nearly two years. Over half the contents were beyond salvage. Containers have breathing vents. Moist air comes in, condenses on the cooler contents. The water never leaves. You end up with a container that's literally a dripping rainforest. Anything like a plastic tray will become full of water. Tragic sight. I can't reveal what org did that. Not my fault - I was only present when it was discovered. Heartbreaking.

The storage unit lease extension - yes, obvious. But there are unexpected difficulties. May be possible to overcome them.
I cannot leave Australia. No 'vax passport' and will never have one. (Not to mention being the only one looking after my very infirm 93 yo mother.)  I'm looking into someone else going. But that may not be possible either.

What is a "silent key estate"?  Deceased? Or owner not able to participate?

[tautech]

Exactly as predicted a few weeks ago !
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg3738361/#msg3738361

Ha ha that IS funny. I'm so predictable.

 

Great score. 

Yeah, it's 'win the lottery' great. For someone who thinks the paper manuals are crucial tech-culture history and must be saved.

Of course you are so predicable the instant I spotted beanflying's post you jumped straight to mind however not for a moment did I think you'd grab the whole lot knowing they were on the other side of the Pacific. 
However I'm sure there'll be lots that won't be of use to you and hopefully you can flick a good few to help lessen the investment.

THz, I'll give my freight forwarder a call tomorrow as he has contacts worldwide.

Thanks! Today (Thurs) I've been going through some international moving co's asking for responses. Nothing yet.
You should send him the link to doco: http://everist.org/dm/
There is another copy with all the contact details, if your friend asks for it.

Done in the initial email so he has as many facts as he needs to point us to his best contact to help you with this mammoth task.

Hat's off to you THz for having such big gonads to take on something like this. 

[tautech]

THz
Professional advice mainly due to the location is to give the job to an international home mover for them to collect, crate and ship to Oz then deliver directly to you and a waiting empty container that you've sourced locally in the meanwhile.

General points from our discussion.....
Handling freight from that part of west NA is fraught with frustrations some of which are mentioned below.
Purchasing a container in the US may require additional certification before shipping companies will accept it as suitable for sea freight.
Unlike downunder the availability of container swinglifts is rare therefore a trailer with container aboard may need to be parked in the facility for the duration of loading to which they may not agree.
Crating the documents mechanizes the handling without the need to carry all documents up ramps and into the container on a trailer and doubles to get them off the floor.
Professional home goods movers can be your one stop shop for this job and they alone are responsible for every step from the lockup to your door.
Current Sydney costs for an uncertified but perfectly sound 20' box is ~$1k.

Although Swift Cargo NZ said he has contacts in the SF part of the world he was not confident in their ability to pull this off in the timeframe required mainly due to the way they do things in that part of the States.

Good luck THz.

[bitseeker]

THz,

If it turns out more time is needed to commence packing and shipping, and given that the storage owners won't just transfer the rental agreement without clearing out the unit, might it be possible to have a company move the manuals into another storage unit in the same facility or a nearby one? Although not an ideal solution, it could buy you time for the international logistics.

[TerraHertz]

THz
Professional advice mainly due to the location is to give the job to an international home mover for them to collect, crate and ship to Oz then deliver directly to you and a waiting empty container that you've sourced locally in the meanwhile.

The bit about buying a container over there was an early idea. Dropped now. Seems the moving companies much prefer to use their own. I can see why.
International home movers do seem to be the best option. BUT many don't have commercial import/export licences, And since this was a commercial purchase, that licence is required. Red tape to the (non) rescue. Again.
Anyway, some do.

Btw, wanting a storage container here, is NOT to store the manuals. That would be a terrible idea. Shipping containers are moisture sponges, especially if there's a large water-absorbing thermal mass inside. Plus, impossible to access when the container is full. The container here is for shelved storage adjacent to a workshop.

General points from our discussion.....
Handling freight from that part of west NA is fraught with frustrations some of which are mentioned below.
Purchasing a container in the US may require additional certification before shipping companies will accept it as suitable for sea freight.

Yeah, i know about the certification grades. And really I don't need to use a sea-worthy (expensive) container for backyard storage. Another reason that idea is dropped.

Unlike downunder the availability of container swinglifts is rare therefore a trailer with container aboard may need to be parked in the facility for the duration of loading to which they may not agree.

20' container on truck, parked in facility - approved! Have spoken with them.

Crating the documents mechanizes the handling without the need to carry all documents up ramps and into the container on a trailer and doubles to get them off the floor.

Except I have to unload them myself at this end. One-person lift cardboard boxes it is. Also, too many manuals in a crate = more crush damage.  I can reflatten the boxes and reuse them. I may also want to rebox portions of the library for more compact storage, after sorting.

Although Swift Cargo NZ said he has contacts in the SF part of the world he was not confident in their ability to pull this off in the timeframe required mainly due to the way they do things in that part of the States.

Fingers crossed, the time constraint looks like it's solved by storage lease extension. No more time limit. Still awaiting final confirmation.

Update: Yes, time limit has been eliminated.

[tautech]

OK cool.
Do keep us informed as to how this pans out as the information may be useful for anyone doing similar things in the future.
Fingers crossed it all goes well. 

[TerraHertz]

Just an update, and link to 'next thread in the saga' - https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/brainstorming-the-boxes-urgent-request/

The boxes problems are all sorted out. 500 boxes sitting ready to be used. Currently all the ducks are in a row, now just waiting for the US shipping company to book a container space on a ship, then contact the US company that will do the boxing and loading, to arrange a date to provide a container onsite.

But... the 'book a ship slot' part is highly fraught atm. May take a while yet. I'm _hoping_ for January still, but will not be surprised if it's slower.

[tooki]

You know who I would ask for a recommendation for a moving company? An international executive relocation agency (the kind of firms big companies use when they’ve headhunted a high level executive from abroad and offer to move them overseas). Those agencies’ clients don't tolerate BS, so they’ll know which movers are reliable and can be trusted to pack and move delicate items.