So I just dropped off all of my household goods to be shipped. Among them were several items that I didn't want to leave in just cardboard boxes or plastic totes due to concern over them being damaged.

I ended up building a couple of wood (oriented strand board only) crates for the shipment. In all it cost me less than $30 (with plenty of leftover material) at Home Depot to build a 5' x 1' x 2.5' crate (see picture) for my mountain bike and many other smaller items to keep things from moving around during shipment.

I bought the following items:
Two 4' x 8' x 1/2" sheets of OSB (oriented strand board) = $14
Two boxes of 1" long screws = $4
One box of 1-1/4" long screws = $4
Two boxes of steel L-angles(8 total) = $6

The only tools I needed were a circular saw and drill. I also used a couple of wood horses for supports while cutting and I had some clamps and a long 2x4 to use as a straight edge while making the cuts.

Hopefully this information is useful to someone as I spent a lot of time mulling over how to safely ship my goods before I finally decided to build the crates.

If one decides to build a crate made of wood, it must be plywood, OSB, or some other engineered wood material as solid wood is subject to several rules/regulations to keep unwanted insects from being imported. The entire crate I made is of OSB (the cheapest), including interior bracing.

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