Shop Layer Pads
(5 Products)
The types of layer pad material available
The pads are part of shipping supplies, and they’re accessories to the packaging itself, which includes mailers, boxes, and pallets. They’re either white or kraft brown corrugated material consisting of thick paper stock in three layers. The inner and outer layers of paper have a middle, fluted or ruffled layer that is a protective shock absorber. Most standard corrugated layer pads are 3/16 of an inch thick. They have a 200-pound/32 edge crush test (ECT) rating, meaning that if they were available in box form, they’d have a bursting threshold of 200 pounds and an edge-crush threshold of 32, a standard industry value.
Also available as accessories are paper chipboard sleeves, consisting of fragments of recycled paper glued together and pressed to form a rigid paperboard or cardboard. The boards are thicker than cardstock and provide rigid front and backing sleeves to protect items like brochures and catalogs shipped in nonrigid mailing envelopes.
The purpose of corrugated paper pads
Unlike shipping accessory items like packing tape, the durable, lightweight, and strong corrugated pads have several applications in the shipping industry such as:
- Dividers between items in boxes and containers
- Weight dispersion between stacked products in boxes, such as between rows of food jars
- Cushioning between flat fragile items like mirrors or artwork
- Box filler to provide protection in void spaces around items
- Corner reinforcements in boxes
- Protective pads at tie-down points on pallets, to prevent wrap or product tears
The pallet layer pads also serve as levelers in between stacks of containers of different heights on skid loads.
Dimensions of the pads
Because the corrugated pads have to accommodate all types of shipping boxes, both vertically as dividers and horizontally as spacers, levelers, or protective layers, they’re available in many width by length dimensions. They range from divider sizes of between 5 x 7 inches and 11 x 17 inches to 24, 32, 40, and 48 inches by similar inch lengths to even larger, full-pallet dimensions. Irregular sizes are available as well, such as 24, 36, and 40 x 72 inches. Check out Quill for this versatile, variable-dimension shipping accessory, available in five per bundle and in cases ranging from 110 to 960 pieces.