Originally Posted by
Wombelero
Please allow me to hijack this tread, but I have a similar question. I bought a wooden pole, approx 1m long. On the pole is an indicator to the beach and to the BBQ. We liked it so we bought it for our home, it looks nice&fun.
Unfortunately it's too long for our luggage, and we are afraid of checking it in because we don't know if it will arrive intact.
I feel they will invoke the No Baseball Bats rule, so no carry on.
The best way to ship such an item is to make a shipping container, should be under $10, similar to ones they sell for shipping fishing rods.
Stop by a hardware store and have them cut you a piece of 2 or 3 inch diameter PVC pipe about an inch longer than your pole, or whatever size it takes to wrap your pole in some newspaper and a couple of shirts or socks for packing and slide in tightly. Buy a couple of PVC end caps and Tape do not Glue them on, and you have a shipping container even the bag gorillas cannot break unless they really, really try. Label it and check it.
The only problem you have is that although this is about as strong and inexpensive a shipping container as there is, it does happen to have the exact construction and 98% of the components of what the eagle eyed TSA is looking for commonly known as a "pipe bomb".
Your pole might be "disrupted' by the bomb squad.