How to Pack Special Shape Granite: Fix the Base Face First
Special shape granite has no full face to sit on, so the hard part of packing is not the shell but the base face, the supports and the clearance. Fix the downward face first, give every piece at least two supports, and leave clearance around projections no smaller than the projection itself.
How do you pack special shape granite, and what comes first?
Packing special shape granite starts with the base face, then the crate type. The face that points down in the pack must be the face that faces down, or disappears, after installation. The reason is simple: the downward face carries the weight of everything above it and stays under load all day, while the visible face stays up, touches only soft padding, and never meets timber directly. Get the base face wrong and every support, clearance and centre-of-gravity mark after it is wrong too. Take 30mm stock: granite at 2.7 t/m³ gives 81 kg per square metre, and a 600×600×30 piece is 0.36 m², so about 29 kg on its own. One piece is not heavy; what matters is that all of it lands on two or three points. For Pink Hemp G564/G4564 mouldings and capitals, the base face is usually the back or the bedding face. The way to fix it is plain: read the shop drawing and take the face that sits against the wall, the floor, or under everything else; if the drawing does not say, take the face nobody will ever see.
How many supports does one special shape need at minimum?
At least two, and any unsupported span has to be propped. A special shape has no full face to sit flat on, so its weight ends up on a few points, and the stretch between two supports is the weakest place in the piece. Granite is strong in compression and weak in bending; during lifting and sudden braking its own weight is amplified, so estimate at 1.5 to 2 times the static weight — a rule of thumb from experience, not a code value. Follow the 29 kg piece from the previous section: at twice the static weight it is 58 kg, split between two supports, close to 30 kg per point, and both points sit near the edges. So put the supports either side of the centre of gravity, not in the middle of the slab, and add one more whenever the middle span grows: an extra support costs little, an empty span costs a break.
Should the space around capitals and balls be packed tight?
No. Leave it open. A protruding part must not bear on the crate wall or on another piece; the clearance is set by the largest projection of that piece and should be no smaller than the projection itself. That is geometry: whatever sticks out has to be given that much room, otherwise the wall or the neighbouring piece touches it first and the impact goes straight into the thinnest section. The usual mistake is to stop the wobble with a wedge — the wobble stops, the force goes in. Let it stand free and locate the piece on its two supports instead, then fill the rest of the void with soft padding that touches without pressing, so the load stays on the base-face side. Moulding ends behave the same way, especially where a 45° corner has to close: chip the end and the joint will not meet on site.
Which places in the crate get crushed most often?
Three of them. What they share is that none of them carries load through the base face, and none of them is obvious on the packing bench. The third row is the one that gets skipped: a free span looks fine while nothing moves, and pressing on it by hand inside the crate may not show it either. Run down the table piece by piece as you pack; it works better than shaking the finished crate.
| Part | Common mistake | Result | Correct practice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capitals, balls and other projecting bodies | Wedging the projection so it cannot move | Load concentrated at the neck; chipped or snapped during lifting | Keep clearance all round, no smaller than the largest projection; let it hang free |
| Moulding ends and thin edges | Butting the end against the crate wall or the next piece | Chipped ends; 45° corners that will not close | Clearance at the ends, separated by a full sheet, no load on the end |
| The span between two supports | Supporting both ends only, middle left hanging | Bending failure at mid-span once lifting amplifies the weight | Prop the span from below so every piece has at least two supports and no long free span |
How many pieces per layer, and can different item numbers share a crate?
One crate holds one item number and one shape. Special shapes are supplied as sets, and mixed packing ends with a count that cannot be closed on site — one missing piece stops one section of the install. Between layers use a full sheet, not loose blocks: blocks concentrate the upper load on a few points, exactly on the projections or thin edges below, while a full sheet spreads it, with a soft pad underneath so contact is face to face rather than point to point. Do not use light pieces to fill the gaps beside heavy ones either. That gap is the allowance left for lifting and for movement; filling it spends the allowance. Weigh each crate before it is closed and write the net weight on the outside; loading can then add up by crate instead of opening boxes to guess.
What should be marked outside so the site does not stop?
The item list first; centre of gravity, lifting points and this-way-up arrows second. Special shapes come as sets, so one missing piece stops a section of work; the crate needs an item number, a quantity and box x of y that can be read without opening it, and the packing list is best fixed where the door opens. Mark the centre of gravity and the lifting points because a crate of special shapes is off-centre and a diagonal lift can roll it; the up arrow is what keeps the base face down: turn the crate over and the base face points up, voiding every support inside. Crate or pallet in one line: mixed containers get stripped and reloaded several times, so use crates; a full container lifted once is fine on pallets with props — see Crate or pallet: which arrives with less breakage. Our Pink Hemp mouldings and coping shapes ship on 30mm stock, 100 m² minimum, 5 days; the 346 m² per 20ft container is the figure for standard slabs, and once shapes are crated the load has to be recalculated from the outer box dimensions, not copied from that number.