SS grates racked in shipping (fixed)

[Brad Baker]

I've been working on a '97 Gen 1000 (BPratt, thanks for the grease tray), so I bought a pair of rcplanebuyer grates. They arrived damaged. One was pretty severely racked (~0.5 in), the other only slightly. One corner of the shipping box looked a little rough.



I emailed Dave. He said he would replace them of course, but that they were easy to straighten and gave some instructions. I was concerned about the welds, but tried it anyway - they came out looking good.



I told him about the success and thought I was finished. Wrong. He asked me if they were flat. I hadn't checked that, and no, they weren't. When I pushed down a certain corner of a grate it required about a 2 mm deflection before it contacted the box surface. It had a wobble. He had a procedure for that too which involved extending one corner of the grate from the edge of a step or bench and whacking that corner with a padded hammer while having a helper step on the opposite corner to hold it down. So, I tried that procedure and it also worked well, though I did my own method.

Before doing this, I measured the flatness of the cooking side of the grate diagonally using a straight edge. As it turned out, the corners that corresponded to the flattest diagonal (w/blue tape in the pic), were the ones that had the wobble. How could that be? When installed in the grill in the normal position, one or both of the other corners was lower resulting in these two being higher and showing the wobble. So to fix it, I flipped the grate over, suspended the grate by those two corners and had She stand on the third suspended corner while I persuaded the free corner with a 4 lb short-handled sledge. I did not hit it hard. One grate took four whacks, the other took three. The grates are now square and wobble-free.

 

[LMichaels]

Yeah leave it to USPS to damage something as rugged as his grates. Last time I used them to ship something (a cell phone sold on EBay) they stole it. I have had them also lose 3 mixers I shipped to buyers. I had stopped using them for everything except actual mail, until the cell phone incident last fall. I only use FedEx and UPS now and have not had any issues with damaged, lost or stolen goods

 

[Rich Dahl]

I buy quite a bit from Amazon with FedEx, UPS no problems ever. USPS 50-50 chance it comes damaged. We have a fenced front patio with a wrought iron gate. I actually saw the post office lady walk up to the gate which isn't locked and threw the package toward the front door which is at least 15 feet away from the gate. It was a new igniter for my performer luckily it wasn't damaged.
UPS, FedEx they come in the patio put the package down by the front door and ring the doorbell and leave.

 

[Bruce]

I have had issues with all services. Like UPS claiming they delivered some CI grates. There were none, they called the driver and he claimed he remembered specifically leaving them on my deck. This was maybe an hour or two after supposed delivery and I was home at the time. The Customer Service said she would get back in touch with the driver and get back to me. In the mean time, the neighbor stopped by with my grates.
I guess USPS is probably the worst of the three, but in general, I am pretty happy with all three. I find USPS to be less expensive and certainly more convenient that the the others.

But, back to the bent grates. I think it is a testament to Daves work that all that bending and manipulating didn't result in a broken weld.

 

[Chris in GA]

Glad u got it fixed. You set for next 1000 years
Whats interesting with USPS about once a year the tracking says that package has been delivered and it goes green but i did not received it, usually i call and they deliver within a day or two.
Usually I sell stuff below $100. Last year i sold a Tormek grinder for $230. It weight about 32 pounds. Shipped via Fedex. It never made it to destination. Only made it to Buford next town from me. I spent days and days calling Fedex lies after lies, totally chaotic business they ran. They even said they located the package in the third call i had with them. They dont give a crap. I had to refund the buyer full amount. I only got $100 back as i did not insure it. Lesson learned need to insure to full amount. I despise Fedex after all this. They are Totally useless.

 

[Jeff Boudman]

I bought some of Dave’s Flavorizer bars and grates. It would take a lot of effort to damage them.

 

[LMichaels]

Glad u got it fixed. You set for next 1000 years
Whats interesting with USPS about once a year the tracking says that package has been delivered and it goes green but i did not received it, usually i call and they deliver within a day or two.
Usually I sell stuff below $100. Last year i sold a Tormek grinder for $230. It weight about 32 pounds. Shipped via Fedex. It never made it to destination. Only made it to Buford next town from me. I spent days and days calling Fedex lies after lies, totally chaotic business they ran. They even said they located the package in the third call i had with them. They dont give a crap. I had to refund the buyer full amount. I only got $100 back as i did not insure it. Lesson learned need to insure to full amount. I despise Fedex after all this. They are Totally useless.

The reason that happened is you most likely sold it on FleaBay. They have a product sold ONLY through Ebay called Smart Post. They use FedEx to closest post office and then USPS for the final leg. They refuse to insure over $100 and FedEx most likely did not lie to you. I will lay odds the USPS lost or stole it. A good friend who works for USPS says this is a very common problem as they know it can't be tracked to them. So if they know it's something of good value they can use or sell they simply "lose" it. But he told me the items end up in the dishonest employee's pocket. I guarantee you if you had actually used FedEx or UPS ONLY even if lost you would have been reimbursed fully to the value of the item lost.

 

[John A. Winston]

The reason that happened is you most likely sold it on FleaBay. They have a product sold ONLY through Ebay called Smart Post. They use FedEx to closest post office and then USPS for the final leg. They refuse to insure over $100 and FedEx most likely did not lie to you. I will lay odds the USPS lost or stole it. A good friend who works for USPS says this is a very common problem as they know it can't be tracked to them. So if they know it's something of good value they can use or sell they simply "lose" it. But he told me the items end up in the dishonest employee's pocket. I guarantee you if you had actually used FedEx or UPS ONLY even if lost you would have been reimbursed fully to the value of the item lost.

Usually like your post but have to disagree with your generalization that it is a common problem for Letter Carriers to steal items. I retired from the USPS after 30 years as a Letter Carrier and while there are bad apples in every occupation it was my experience that theft by employees was not that common. Sorry for your bad experiences with the USPS that seems to have made you bitter, but many surveys show the high confidence that the public has with the Post Office.

 

[Bruce]

I am confident in USPS. But my story is from a letter carries who's co-worker was caught taking the nickles off every advertising flyer he was supposed to deliver. It was a lot of nickles, but certainly not worth his job.

 

[LMichaels]

Usually like your post but have to disagree with your generalization that it is a common problem for Letter Carriers to steal items. I retired from the USPS after 30 years as a Letter Carrier and while there are bad apples in every occupation it was my experience that theft by employees was not that common. Sorry for your bad experiences with the USPS that seems to have made you bitter, but many surveys show the high confidence that the public has with the Post Office.

I didn't have "A" bad experience with them but many. Stealing that phone was the last straw. Sadly it just seems there are more "bad apples" in some business than others. Also sorry if my experiences step on some toes but the bad things I have had happen when transporting things from point A to B have always happened with USPS involved. It never dawned on me things were being actually "swiped" until my friend told me how prevalent it was. But sure is funny that the ESN/EMEI # of that cell phone is active. While it never got to my buyer.

 

[Scott L in MA]

I've been working on a '97 Gen 1000 (BPratt, thanks for the grease tray), so I bought a pair of rcplanebuyer grates. They arrived damaged. One was pretty severely racked (~0.5 in), the other only slightly. One corner of the shipping box looked a little rough.

View attachment 4478 View attachment 4479

I emailed Dave. He said he would replace them of course, but that they were easy to straighten and gave some instructions. I was concerned about the welds, but tried it anyway - they came out looking good.

View attachment 4480

I told him about the success and thought I was finished. Wrong. He asked me if they were flat. I hadn't checked that, and no, they weren't. When I pushed down a certain corner of a grate it required about a 2 mm deflection before it contacted the box surface. It had a wobble. He had a procedure for that too which involved extending one corner of the grate from the edge of a step or bench and whacking that corner with a padded hammer while having a helper step on the opposite corner to hold it down. So, I tried that procedure and it also worked well, though I did my own method.

Before doing this, I measured the flatness of the cooking side of the grate diagonally using a straight edge. As it turned out, the corners that corresponded to the flattest diagonal (w/blue tape in the pic), were the ones that had the wobble. How could that be? When installed in the grill in the normal position, one or both of the other corners was lower resulting in these two being higher and showing the wobble. So to fix it, I flipped the grate over, suspended the grate by those two corners and had She stand on the third suspended corner while I persuaded the free corner with a 4 lb short-handled sledge. I did not hit it hard. One grate took four whacks, the other took three. The grates are now square and wobble-free.

View attachment 4481

@ Brad it’s funny you posted this, as I recently received a pair of RCplane grates and have the same problem! Except mine were used, so not sure if racked before shipping with the PO or during shipment to me. I was tempted to “fix” them like you did but was also worried about breaking the welds. Nice to see that it wasn’t a problem. I might give it a try on mine. They aren’t that bad, and I have cooked on them. But every time I cook I notice it and bothers me, even though they are totally serviceable.

 

[Greg M]

I'm just amazed that rcplanebuyer grates could be damaged/bent like that. I have a set and they seem like they would be indestructible. Maybe this set was run over by a truck? Probably a semi?

 

[Brad Baker]

I suppose the box was dropped or tossed during handling and landed hard on the corner.

Anyone remember this? United Breaks Guitars

 

[LMichaels]

I suppose the box was dropped or tossed during handling and landed hard on the corner.

Anyone remember this? United Breaks Guitars

Yep. I was working for United then. And yes there were SOME aholes that were brutal to our guests possessions. I actually reported one guy I was working with one night to one of the highest managers in the company one night because I caught him kick a person's guitar down the outside luggage slide on the jet bridge. Certainly not meant for guitars. His excuse? "It's only an effing guitar" I wanted to kick him down that chute. He ended up being fired

 

[JKalchik]

My [now former] employer bought a used 2 meter rack with 2 servers in it several years ago. When the manufacturer came in to certify it to put it on maintenance, the 2 gents almost immediately started having problems with subsystems not powering up. They started to look closer, started laughing their heads off, and said "*NO*." On closer inspection, the entire rack, about 1,000 lbs. worth, was completely out of square. Even the cooling holes in the server sheetmetal that were supposed to be round were slightly oblong. So, I took pictures, put them up on my website, and got on the line to the equipment dealer, said we'd just gotten delivery and discovered this. He looked at the pictures for about 30 seconds.....

"Sir, when can we deliver a replacement to you?"

There were no obvious signs of being dropped, or being hit, but the entire rack was out of square by about 1/4", and that had to take some serious force. The dealer had arranged to purchase this equipment, and actually never physically seen it, as it was drop shipped from the decommissioning site. I have no idea when or when the damage occurred, but that's easily the worst damage I've seen on incoming equipment. Oh, and when it was new, the rack was about half a million dollars. At the moment, I could buy on the used market (CPUs are no longer being manufactured,) each server for under $10k.