Unlocking the Secret to Building Crates that Won’t Fail

Posted by Brett McCutcheon on Jun 11, 2015 10:41:15 AM
Brett McCutcheon

Manufacturing Wood CratesGood things come in small packages. But great big things require great big crates. Manufacturing a great product will only benefit your company if you can find an effective way to get those goods into the hands of your customers. Wood crates are the most common containers used for shipping great big items as they can be adapted relatively easily to meet the requirements of almost any item needing to be transported, even large items.

A wood crate is a framework of boards fastened together to form an inflexible structural enclosure that will protect items enclosed within it. A crate differs from a wood box in construction method and in strength. A box consists of flat boards on the top, bottom, sides and ends and the strength of the boards dictates the strength of the box. A crate gets its strength from a framework of interconnecting boards on all sides. The basic framework of a wood crate is similar to trusses used in the construction of bridges. Both the bridge and crate frameworks are designed to absorb and distribute stress.

Perhaps the most frequently given reason that folks are hesitant to switch to wooden crates is the fact that their use requires more specialized, expensive tools and crate fasteners to seal them. While both cardboard and plastic shipping containers can be easily sealed with tape, wooden crates require you to use screws as crate fasteners to securely seal them up.

And herein lies the secret to a strong crate: skimping on the fastener used will negatively impact the integrity and strength of the wood crate itself.

Combination screw and nail fasteners have become a favorite fastener for building crates as they combine the speed of nails driven in by a pneumatic nailer with the holding strength of screws. The SCRAIL® fastener from The BECK Fastener Group®, for example, can be used to build or seal crates at a rate two times faster than collated screws and up to eight times faster than traditional bulk screws driven in with an ordinary power drill or screwdriver. Sealing crates can now be done quickly and effectively.

As an added bonus, SCRAIL® fasteners can be removed almost as easily as they are installed with little or no damage done to the wooden crate or the SCRAIL® themselves. This means that both the wood and the crate fasteners can be reused, reducing the cost of using wooden crates for shipping.

Download the Whitepaper: 3 Smart Strategies in Crating

Topics: Crate Building

CURRENT PROMOTIONS

10% Discount on Your First SCRAIL® Fastener Order

SCRAIL®, Fast like a Nail, Strong like a Screw, are incredibly versatile collated fasteners that can be driven with a pneumatic nailer at a rate twice as fast as collated screws and eight times faster than bulk screws. You can rely upon SCRAIL® fasteners to hold strong, without callbacks to fix a squeak or a nail pop.

Give SCRAIL® a try, and enjoy 10% off your first order.

  • Use SCRAIL® almost anywhere ordinary screws are used
  • Save time and labor costs 
  • Twice as fast as collated screws, eight times faster than bulk screws
  • Easily adjusted, quickly removed
  • Dramatically increased holding power vs. nails
  • Making projects easier since 1998

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