Bronze in a mixed container from Vietnam

If your Vietnam container also carries ceramics, rattan and furniture, our crates are the heaviest thing in it, and they have to go in first and stay on the floor. The consolidator decides that from paperwork, not by looking at the cargo, so crate weights, crate sizes and your shipping marks must reach the warehouse before cut-off. Here is what we send, what you confirm, and what breaks when a line is missing.

What does the consolidator need from the foundry, and by when?

Six things, all settled before cut-off rather than on the day the truck arrives. A consolidator building a load plan with a gap where your crate weights should be puts the crates wherever is convenient, which on heavy cargo is the wrong answer.

How do heavy crates change the loading order?

Bronze is loaded first and stays on the container floor for the whole voyage. A size 65 five-piece set weighs about 36 kg before packing, so a crate holding a few sets is floor-level cargo and nothing stacks on it. Bronze takes floor area rather than volume, which is why a mixed load carrying it fills the floor long before the roof — see how much bronze fits in a container.

We build crates to suit that: rather than one big crate, a lot is split into crates a loader can move without a crane, strapped and blocked against the lighter cargo built up around them. How we construct and line a crate is in packing bronze for sea freight. Road weight limits and any warehouse handling fee are your forwarder's numbers, not ours.

What marks must be on a crate travelling in someone else's load?

A crate in a consolidated container passes through hands that never saw your order. Every crate of ours carries:

• Your shipping mark, printed exactly as you send it, on two opposite faces.
• Crate number out of total: 3 of 7, not just “3”.
• Gross weight in kg and outside dimensions.
• Your purchase order number.
• Handling marks: this side up, heavy, do not stack.
• The ISPM-15 stamp on the timber itself.

Whose packing list does customs see?

The consolidator's master list, built from each supplier's list. Yours has to survive being copied into it, so keep the description on our list identical to the one on your purchase order and your import paperwork: same wording, same metal, same piece count per crate.

What if my bronze is late to the consolidation warehouse?

The container sails without it, and a part shipment costs more to fix than it saved. Casting runs 21–30 days from an approved sample, so count the cut-off backwards from sample approval, not from the order date: approve late and the cut-off moves with it. If the schedule is tight, decide early whether a mixed load is the right shape at all — LCL or FCL for a bronze shipment sets the two against each other.

Who checks my lot after it leaves the foundry?

Nobody, unless you arrange it. The consolidator counts crates and checks marks; it does not open them, and a sealed crate is not looked into again until your floor. So the check that matters happens here, before the crate is nailed shut: a video call while the lot is laid out, our photographs of each piece, or an inspector you send. Variation of 1–3 cm is normal on hand-cast work and over 5 cm is a fault we put right at our cost — both far cheaper settled here.

What do I check when the container is opened at your end?

Your crates come out last, because they went in first. Before anything is uncrated, count crates against your own packing list, check each shipping mark and crate number, and photograph any crate that is split, crushed or water-stained while it is still in the container. What to record and who to tell is in bronze damaged on arrival claims.

Questions buyers ask

Can the foundry deliver straight to the consolidation warehouse?

Yes. Give us the warehouse address, the dock contact and the cut-off date in writing, and we deliver to that gate with the crates marked for your load.

How heavy should a bronze crate be when it travels with other people's cargo?

Light enough for the warehouse to move without a crane and for your own end to receive. Tell us what your dock handles and we split the lot to suit.

If my bronze sits at the bottom, is it unloaded last?

Usually. Plan the receiving day around it: clear the dock for the last third of the container rather than the first.

Who pays if a bronze crate damages someone else's goods?

It falls to whoever's stow plan put a heavy crate in the wrong place, which is why the packing list with weight per crate must reach the consolidator before loading.

Is a consolidated container slower than shipping on my own?

It adds the wait for the load to fill and the cut-off discipline with it. For a first order of a few crates it is still usually the sensible shape.