Occasionally a signal will be in pretty poor shape prior to shipping. Jay shipped an SSC that had apparently been hit by a truck while in service (not that uncommon of an occurrence.) Part of the difficulty here was that most of the reflectors had cracks starting in them or were already in multiple pieces. They would have been unstable if removed and packed separately.

Jay opted to remove the heavy components (e.g., the top and bottom plates,) place clear packing tape over any potentially unstable pieces of reflector, and pack the spaces between the reflectors and portholes with shredded paper. The shipping cartons were also packed pretty tight with shredded paper. As a result of this work the signal and reflectors all arrived in repairable condition.