Unpacking Backwoods Shipping Crate

This is fun, I've gone through this before. My ABS Pitboss arrived on a pallet weighing in at about 450 pounds. You have to get a little creative in how you do this. First lets take a look a how the cookers are secured to the crate pallet.

As you can see, Backwoods cookers are designed to make the shipping very easily secure. The base of the units have cutouts that standard 2x4's fit through so they can then bolt down and for a secure mount.

All I need to do is remove the bolts on these 2x4s and we'll be ready to move them off the pallet and into position on the patio. There they will sit while I do some learning on them.

Here we see I've got the first 2x4 removed. Once I have that second one removed I can lift the Backwoods Chubby off the pallet. The Chubby was simple enough weighing in at only 100 pounds, I just lifted it off the pallet and onto the ground - almost popped something I think, phew!

Getting that big 350lb Competitor off the pallet took some thought. The shipping pallet was as high as three 2x4's so I took scraps from the crate and made two skids - two 2x4s high.

I inched the Competitor off the pallet and onto my skids, dropping 1 2x4 in height in the process - I also skewered a finger on one of the crate staples in the process, ouch!

Once I had the Backwoods Competitor off the pallet and onto my stacked 2x4s, it was a simple matter of tipping the thing one way and kicking out a 2x4. Same thing on the other side until it was on the ground - Tadda!

Still, even though the Competitor is off the pallet and more easily movable. I've still got to get it moved over to the patio. A good quality dolly works wonders, but it's still a big heavy cooker to move around on a dolly.

 Makes sense right?