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@fxbill, Sweet ride! Figured I'd just upload that pic that's stored on UltimatGTO dot com. She's been my baby since 81'

Just got it home - here are a couple pics at the gas station earlier this evening. I’ll unwrap, shoot more pics, and tell the rest of the story tomorrow... i ended up going with the “flat panel tv foam sheets” suggested by AJ, then shrink wrap, then 2 moving blankets with 36” rubber band straps.

Cornstarch also works pretty well and then you can clay the finish after that. This is what it did for mine.

Argh. That's awful. We're a little over an hour from Grand Rapids, so if there's anything we can do PM either me or @Nahash5150 and we'll do what we can to help you get your gear back.

If you ever happen to notice that there are what I call spider webs/(Swirlies) I'll give you one of my secrets to a mirror finish on my mint 1970 Pontiac GTO. I use a product called 3M Finesse it II. I use a powered buffer to very carefully polish the paint to a mirror like finish. It's the very best polish I've ever used on paint and plastics. My car was chosen as the pic of the week way back in 03/30/2003 and can be seen in the link below: http://ultimategto.com/cgi-bin/showcar.cgi?pow=yes&pic=/pow/pow0313 I also used that pic as my avatar, I was very happy that day when Jeff Klein emailed me to say one of my pics was chosen as the pic of the week. Turbo You can pick up Finesse it II from Superior Automotive or any reputable Automotive Paint supply store. PS Yikes! Congrats on finding a DD18. It must be a scary earth moving son of a gun!

Remember guys, poor DaddyJT has to LIFT this 125lb sucker INTO his truck. It will be tough enough getting it in the back, let alone through a side door. Now I know he's definitely quite the macho, he-man fellow, but he also needs something left of himself at the end to get it out and then into the house. The goal is to survive to be able to listen to it. If it's padded well enough, wrapped well enough, and strapped in, okay, it will be just as good as in the back seat, short of something horrific happening. Anyone volunteering to meet him there to help out? It's a bit too much of a commute for me unfortunately.

Are you moving it inside your truck Mark ? If so, set it on the floor, with the rear panel facing the front seat back. If you hit the brakes hard the rear panel is what might touch the seat back. Put a piece of dense foam between the rear panel and the seat back. Otherwise it will just sit there and nothing need touch it. Blankets and such attract sand, dirt, etc. and make it difficult to handle a heavy item. If you do get any scratches, Meguiar's Ultimate Polish will take care of them easily. https://www.meguiars.com/automotive/products/meguiars-ultimate-polish-g19216-16-oz-liquid Congrats on the score - that is an awesome sub !!!

A little history - In 2005 I decided it was time to upgrade from my first sub purchase of a Klipsch SW10. The Klipsch was a big step up for me, being my first sub, but it was time for something bigger and badder. At that time of my life, money really wasn’t an issue, so I decided to spring for the new Velodyne DD series. Conventional wisdom at the time was that you didn’t want a sub bigger than 12”, especially for music. It was believed that 15 & 18 inch subs were too slow and sluggish. With this in mind, I opted for the DD12, a sub I still currently love and use to this day. What I did NOT know, was the ground breaking effect of two technologies that Velodyne was the first to combine in one sub (at least in a mass-market line up): servo control, and a microphone calibrated room correction program with 8 band parametric eq. These technologies made the 18” version (DD18) arguably the best sub available at the time. The servo eliminates any “sluggishness” in the larger drivers, and the parametric eq is the icing on the cake. Thus started over a decade of regret. The DD18 sold for just north of $4,000 back in ‘05, and the routinely sell for for north of $2,000 today. Further complicating the issue, the DD series have a proprietary remote (that the sub is virtually useless without) and a very nice microphone/cable kit. Many used specimens lack these accessories. Fast forward to yesterday. A couple are selling their vacation home in Wyoming (about a 10 hour round trip from me), and liquidating many items in it -including a near-new Velodyne DD18, with all accessories, for the incredible price of $550. Needless to say, I have made arrangements with the seller to come and get it Wednesday. I offered an extra $50 to hold it, or offered a PayPal deposit. She would not hear of it - she was just glad it was going to someone who would appreciate it as much as her husband. I am beyond thrilled. I have included a photo (sorry about the poor resolution) below showing the size difference between the DD12 and the DD18. My question is, what is the best way to avoide ANY swirlies/scratches in the mirror black piano finish? I plan on taking moving blankets, but I do not want to impart even the slightest scratch in the finish. I have thought about wrapping it in shrink wrap...? Looking for some advice before Wednesday afternoon:-) thanks for reading my ramble...

Charlie, what did you do with your Cat? _____________________________________________ Three Days Grace Just Like You

I'm less than an hr from GR Ill go pick up your ribbons if you wish and trust you to reimburse the UPS to me Mark PS I;m going to HR tomorrow (Friday) so hit me up quick if you would like. GR not HR sorry

Ozzy Osbourne Mama I'm Coming Home

Stone Sour Say You'll Haunt Me

Puddle of Mudd Blurry

Three Days Grace I Hate Everything About You

Linkin Park Crawling

Shinedown Simple Man

Stained It's Been Awhile

Great White The Angels Song

As a FYI there is another member from here in your backyard (also in NC IIRC) Sea, who has also repaired ribbons in the past. He uses a diff material but it’s been heard, touched and signed off in by Bob Carver. Might be another option for you once they comeback

Hey Nick, sorry you are having a problem with Morjet - unfortunately he’s far from a regular contributor here, and hasn’t been on the forum for almost 3 months. As a community, we are lucky to have very few of these incidents, but I know that doesn’t help you. I would continue with your PayPal dispute, and be persistent with your calls. The value of the ribbons may make a small-claims suit worth your time... best of luck, Mark

Nice find! I can relate to finding that gem at an excellent buy and getting it home......what a rush.......grin

All I can say about moving it is Don't get a hernia!! I have the original 15 Velodyne sub with servos, but without the room correction. It has a marble base on it and either real or not real the unit is a killer to move! I got it for $200 about 12 years ago and immediately dumped my huge 18". I've never looked back although I heard some great ones at the fest. I very recently picked up a similar version of the 12" Velodyne for $60 off Fleabay as a non working unit. Turns out the guy didn't know how to connect it.... It works perfect! I would suggest that you find a soft flannel blanket as an inner wrapper on the unit and then using standard moving quilts over that. I doubt that you'll get any marks on it at all that way. Luckily mine don't have that finish.....black wood grain finish, but I've moved quite a few gloss black finished units and thick flannel as a first cover seems to work quite well for preserving the gloss finish without making any marks on it at all. You got a great deal.....enjoy!! PS.. I personally would not use plastic as a first wrapper. If it gets even fine dust between it and the finish it will rub it in enough to mar the finish, but if it does I also second the Mequires. They have grades to cover any amount of scratching as well as swirl removers to do a final cleanup.

Dreams really do come true! Loved your story, Mark. I'm a little off-convention in my suggestion, here. But I'll share it in case you deem it valuable. Do what you think is the best solution, in the end. I have always saved that white styro-foam-material that comes with any flat panel screen. Seems like the manufacturers came up with that for precisely this purpose - as scratches on your flat panel really suck. When I move a flat panel, I reuse one of the many I've saved. I put the microfiber or moving blankets around the white material/wrap because microfiber and other materials/blankets/etc..., may have manufacturing imperfections dirt, grit, sand, etc, that are not caught in quality control. The white material that flat panels are shipped encased in, seems to be designed for precisely this purpose. You can go to Best Buy, and get one from their geek-squad install unit. A big 50" screen is going to give you enough of that material to wrap your sub. Then use the shrink-wrap that Dennis suggested to hold it fast to the sub for the inner layer. Then blankets and such with potential scratchies and imperfections will not touch your finish. I see that U-haul also offers this product:

I recommend buying a new microfiber blanket at Target or Walmart or wherever... For $25-$30 you will have a wrap that won't hurt your sub and something to keep you warm this winter. You could even hang it on the wall for reflection damping. I used to have a Velodyne ULD-18, with it's servo controlled 400 watt amp. It was a BEAST, but did music quite well. Enjoy!

What a great challenge to tackle. Personally, Kevin’s idea of first wrapping it in a microfiber blanket makes a lot of sense. Add to that Dennis’s suggestion and wrap the blanketed sub with stretch wrap and then wrap that package with moving blankets and finally, stretch wrap the whole kit & kabuto. If anything happens and you somehow manage to scratch it, send it to me and I’ll fix it. Then I’ll send you some pictures so you can forever see just what you will forever be missing.