Custom Wood Crates Built for Your Shipment

Twelve. That is the number of distinct heat-treated export crate sizes Atlas has built into a working library for one national steel and specialty-alloy distributor. 158 inches long. 84 inches long. 49 by 40. 39 by 33. 32 by 27. Vertical-product crates with lids. The buyer does not re-engineer a crate every time a shipment leaves the dock. They pick the size from the library and we build it.

On top of that, the same customer gets roughly 1,800 notched, heavy-duty winged skids for steel through Atlas. One supplier covers both the skids and the crates for everything that customer ships.

When a crate beats a pallet plus stretch wrap

A standard 48 by 40 pallet wrapped in stretch film is plenty for most domestic loads. But when the product is fragile, irregularly shaped, going overseas, or going to a customer who has their own packaging spec, the right answer is a crate. Atlas builds wood crates every week for buyers across the Midwest who hit one of these three triggers.

• Fragility. The product will not survive a freight handler's lift truck or a customs inspection wrapped on an open pallet. Process instrumentation, finished tooling, marble and stone slabs, sensitive equipment.
• Irregular shape. The product is tall, narrow, asymmetric, or has hardware sticking out that needs an enclosure. Steel coils on edge, hose assemblies, vertical equipment housings, machinery with brackets.
• International destination. Wood packaging crossing a border has to be heat-treated and stamped to the ISPM-15 standard, or customs at the destination port will not release the freight. Stretch wrap does not solve this. A heat-treated crate does.

Heat-treated export crates: the ISPM-15 piece

If wood packaging is crossing a border, it has to be heat-treated to 133 degrees Fahrenheit at the wood's core for 30 minutes and stamped with the IPPC mark. The stamp is what customs looks for. No stamp means the freight sits at the destination port and the shipper deals with the consequences.

Every export crate from Atlas is heat-treated, with the IPPC stamp on at least two opposite faces. The treatment kills any pests in the wood and spoils the fibers that attract them in the first place. It does not waterproof the wood and it does not change the structural strength.

How Atlas runs heat treatment

A crate only has to hold temperature for 30 minutes, but getting the core of every board up to heat takes hours. The usual plan is to load the oven at the end of the day and run it overnight, so heat treatment adds about a day to the lead time. We tell you that up front.

The long-and-narrow export library

The export crate library Atlas built for a national steel and specialty-alloy distributor covers four 158-inch sizes (12 by 12, 9 by 9, 7 by 7, 5 by 5) and four 84-inch sizes in the same cross-sections, plus 289-inch one-offs for the long bars and tubing. Matching the cross-section to the product diameter keeps wasted volume off the freight invoice.

Domestic custom crates

Not every crate goes overseas. About half of Atlas's crate volume is domestic, built for buyers who need more protection than a pallet plus stretch wrap can give, or who ship to a downstream customer that will reject a load on packaging quality.

Equipment crates

A Chicago-area popcorn machine manufacturer runs three named equipment crates through Atlas, each one built around a specific machine. The crate matches the machine plus its access panels, interior bracing holds the machine centered on the deck, and a wall or lid comes off cleanly so the receiving operator does not have to break the crate to get the machine out.

A Chicago-area industrial hose manufacturer runs a reinforced, lidded crate program with Atlas across more than two hundred crates. The reinforcement is for the weight of the hose product inside, and for protection against side or top impacts in the shipping process.

Vertical-product crates with lids

When the product stands upright in the crate, the build changes. The sidewalls carry more load, the lid has to seat tight and stay tight through the trip, and the base needs a notched or winged design so a forklift can pick the crate without dragging the load. Atlas builds these in sizes including 49 by 40, 74 by 16 by 14, 32 by 27, and 39 by 33.

A-frames for tall freight

Some loads are tall enough that a flat deck plus stretch wrap will not make the trip. A-frame crates and pallets hold the product on edge with bracing on both sides. Atlas runs a 120-inch A-frame program for a Chicago-area marble slab importer (covered on the Custom Pallets page) and builds larger A-frame crates for oversize inventory.

The spec questions that shape your crate

Before Atlas quotes a custom crate, your answers to a few questions shape the build. None of them are trick questions, and you do not need all the answers before you call. The conversation usually fills in the gaps.

How Atlas runs a custom crate quote

The quote process is built to be fast and direct. You call, we ask a short set of questions, we figure the price, and we get back to you. Running lean is core to how Atlas works. You have one point of contact who handles your account every time. No ticket queue, no rep rotation, no escalation path.

What Atlas needs to quote

Six things, in this order: product weight inside the crate, product dimensions (length by width by height), destination including whether it crosses a border, lid or open-top, quantity per delivery and how often, and the delivery ZIP so freight gets priced right. If you do not know one of those, that is fine. A photo of the product on a pallet or in its current packaging is the single most useful thing you can send.

Lead time, honest answer

For most orders, even large ones, we ask for about 7 days from the approved drawing to delivery. That window covers the build queue, the heat-treat cycle when it is required, and the truck. Recurring orders can be planned ahead and ship sooner. And we know buyers tend to discover they are short on crates when there are only one or two left, so we will always try to expedite an emergency order. It does not always work out, but we will tell you exactly what the lead time looks like before you commit.

When a crate is the wrong answer

Atlas is not in the business of selling a crate when a pallet plus stretch wrap will do the job. Crates cost more, weigh more, and take up more truck space. If your product fits on a 48 by 40 pallet, weighs under about 2,500 pounds, and is going to a domestic customer with no written spec, a standard pallet is plenty.

The same goes the other way. Some loads that look like they need a wood crate actually do better in a crate built from laminated paperboard. Those are lighter and cost less per unit on a recurring program, and Atlas does that work too.

Frequently asked questions