Hi everybody. I have a prospective oversized crating job coming up, exterior dimensions in the ballpark of 7'x9'x8'. It will initially house a roughly 400 lb. plaster cast of three human figures, travel quite literally across Canada from Nova Scotia to a foundry in British Columbia, and the resulting bronze sculpture - having beefed-up to anywhere from 500-700 lbs. - is supposed to climb back into the same crate, and come back to Nova Scotia.
I am most concerned about the outgoing plaster cast. This job just popped on the radar, and as I have not yet seen the actual piece, I am imagining a lot of foam-wrapped wood and custom-made armatures at important junctures all over, to make sure the cast stays in one piece and arrives with all its limbs and digits.
What I love is the idea of wrapping the piece in plastic, setting it on its base inside the crate, and sprayfoaming the cavity to capacity, then flush-cutting the foam, attaching the crate face, and off it goes as a solid cavity fill. Some extra packing on the other end could make up for the difference in size between the plaster cast and the finished bronze, and the return journey would be a much less fussy packing experience, I imagine, having to deal mostly with just the weight, more than any concern that an arm is going to snap off?
Pretending for a moment that budget would not be a restriction, I am wondering if the spray-foam cavity pack is a legitimate practice for object crating? Open-cell 2lb. foam? Closed cell 4lb.? Have any of you done this before?
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