Packaging Equipment

Packaging Equipment Buying Guide

Hand wrap or machine: count your daily loads. Stretch wrapping by hand works, and our handheld stretch wrappers make it as painless as it gets, from $5 dispensers to extended-handle wrappers that spare the operator the crouch-and-circle walk around every pallet. The case for a machine is film and labor arithmetic. A powered wrapper with pre-stretch draws the film out 200 percent or more before it meets the load, so a machine can cut film use roughly in half against hand wrapping, and industry guidance puts the crossover in the range of 15 to 35 loads per day, where the machine begins paying for itself in film alone. Hand wrapping also produces the least consistent containment force, which is the number that actually holds a load together on the highway. Below that volume, wrap by hand and spend the savings elsewhere.

Choosing a stretch wrap machine. Our stretch wrap machines center on semi-automatic turntables: the forklift sets the pallet on the table, the operator attaches the film tail, and the machine turns the load while carriage height and wrap count run on their own. Vestil's medium duty powered machines start around $625, the material pallet machines run near $3,000, and the high performance auto-wrap line reaches about $19,700 with pre-stretch and programmable wrap cycles. Spec three things against your loads: turntable capacity above your heaviest pallet, maximum load height against your tallest, and a low profile or ramp-loading deck if pallets arrive by pallet jack rather than forklift. Related and often bought alongside, carousels and powered turntables from the same catalog spin loads for banding, assembly, and display work, from $27 mini carousels to 4,000 lb king pin units.

Strapping: poly or steel, and the tools between. In strapping equipment, the material question settles most purchases. Polypropylene strap, rated around 242 lb break strength in our catalog, handles cartons, bundles, and light palletized loads, and it is cheap, light, and safe to cut. Steel strap, rated to 1,170 lb, is for loads that are heavy, rigid, or sharp-edged: coils, lumber, machinery on skids, anything that would slice poly or shrug off its tension. Tools scale with volume the same way wrappers do: manual tensioners and sealers from about $42, pneumatic sealers from around $147, a banding cart at $749 to make the whole kit mobile, then semi-automatic strapping machines from about $1,535 and a high speed machine at about $7,200 for stations strapping all day. Buy the strap for the load, then the tool for the volume.

Shrink is not stretch. The two films solve different problems and the names get swapped constantly. Stretch film is elastic: it is pulled tight around a pallet and its tension holds the load together, no heat involved. Shrink film is sized loose over the product and then heated, and it contracts into a tight, sealed, often weather-resistant skin, which is why it shows up on boats, machinery stored outdoors, and retail multipacks rather than warehouse pallets. Our shrink wrap equipment covers the applied side: a 115V electric heat gun at about $45 and a shrink wrap cart at $631 that carries the gun, the film roll, and the work around the yard. If the goal is holding a pallet together for freight, buy stretch; if it is sealing something against weather or tamper, shrink.

Weigh it before the carrier does. Freight bills are calculated from weight, and the carrier's scale settles arguments unless yours catches the discrepancy first. Our scales collection is built around pallet weighing: electronic digital floor scales from about $730, low profile decks from about $474 that a pallet jack can climb with a ramp, a U-shaped platform scale at about $1,260 that straddles a pallet truck's forks so weighing takes seconds, and portable floor scales near $3,000 for operations that weigh at multiple points. A scale in the packaging line does more than police freight class: it catches short-shipped and double-stacked pallets, verifies catch weights, and gives the wrap station a pass-fail check before the load disappears into a trailer. It is the cheapest audit the shipping department will ever run.

Pallets, protection, and the last details. The load's foundation comes from this collection too. Our pallets page skips commodity wood: steel pallets from about $101 and aluminum to 6,000 lb capacity for heavy or reusable duty, plastic pallets and skids that suit export and hygiene-controlled work, galvanized wire pallets, and nestable presswood at about $35 where cheap and light wins. Edge and cargo protectors put a guard between strap tension and carton edges, from about $24, which is what keeps a tightly strapped load from cutting into its own contents. The rest of the small kit lives in packaging accessories: impulse bag sealers, carton staplers, tape and label dispensers, silica gel, and a 500 lb packaging bench that gives the whole operation a proper surface to work on.