Shipping attachments from Canada to US- what's needed?

First, I understand this is technically an Equipment Shipping question so I understand if my question gets booted to that section. I did put it here as I'm asking for general guidance on what's practical or not and how to go about it which I figured was also interesting for a lot more folks and would draw more input.

I can easily get stuff shipped from any corner of the US without needing to use brokers and such but curious what changes when I want to ship something just a couple miles over the border. So... let's suppose for a completely made up example I found a bucket on craigslist in Ontario for my 28ton excavator that I cannot live without. Weighs in about 2500lbs and is bigger than a standard pallet which makes it an odd load (ie- not standard freight but also not a flatbed LTL either). Since the seller is an individual, it's up to me to arrange all shipping. Just curious to what's involved in this scenario if I tried to set it up myself.

I have only imported something from Canada once, it was a very large muffler. I used my regular LTL broker, brokers always get me better rates than direct. They suggested Border Bee for the customs nonsense and it all went pretty smoothly. Every day somebody was asking for some more paperwork to be filled on the computer, however.

That bucket must be incredibly cheap to be able to buy it in Canada, go through all the hoops and ship it to Austin for less than you could buy one locally.

He mentioned the bucket was hypothetical. There are usually several brokers and trucking companies either at or advertising at the Ritchie Bros. auctions. You could probably get some info from Ritchie Bros.

Welder Dave said:

He mentioned the bucket was hypothetical.

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Correct. I just chose a bucket as an example for shipping because it's that in-between-size that's not a large piece of equipment nor does it easily fit on a regular pallet.

Freight forwarders like Central Freight, FEDEX, etc. need everything to fit on a pallet so their small warehouse forklifts can shuffle the pallets at their transfer hubs and then be driven onto a covered trailer for loading/unloading. In fact, the pallet needs to be able to be moved with a pallet jack by the driver during pick up as most places don't have loading ramps and/or a small fork to drive into the truck and push the pallet towards the back (really the front) of the trailer for loadout. I've actually shipped a bucket from Missouri to Texas (actually the seller did) but it did have to be strapped on a custom made pallet. Going through that is what made me think about this...

When you get larger than a hypothetical bucket, you more than likely need a flat-bed and the complexity/prices start to skyrocket.

Welder Dave said:

There are usually several brokers and trucking companies either at or advertising at the Ritchie Bros. auctions. You could probably get some info from Ritchie Bros.

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That's a good idea. I just searched around a bit and found this: https://blog.ritchiebros.com/tips-for-cross-border-buyers-at-ritchie-bros-auctions
They use Pacific Customs Brokers but I'm assuming most of that effort is for larger machines that have titles, emissions, safety regs, etc. And that's just for the paperwork- still need a shipping company after that. Would my 'magic bucket' have to do the same customs paperwork? Dunno. If I can find the time this week, I'll call them. But again, I'm really just trying to learn early before I find something and then it's jump through my a$$ to figure it out last min.

On a side note, I live right at 200 miles away from both the Ritchie Bros Houston and Dallas/FT Worth auction sites which are some of the bigger sites for RB. I have my fair bit of selection of heavy bits to chose from (much to my wife's discontent). But even this close, I can't figure out how to get a 'magic bucket' picked up and shipped at a reasonable price because of the in-between size of the load. Taking a day off work to drag my trailer behind my 1-ton to get something adds a lot to the 'effective' price I'm paying.

Welder Dave said:

He mentioned the bucket was hypothetical.

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LCA078 said:

Correct. I just chose a bucket as an example for shipping because it's that in-between-size that's not a large piece of equipment nor does it easily fit on a regular pallet.

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Hypothetical or not the economics of the purchase and cross border shipping are the same.

There are always trucks looking for back hauls. The guy that brought our Mauldin grader from South Carolina had taken a load to Florida from Quebec, and picked up the grader and an asphalt spreader on the way back home. Superior industries are building and shipping 37 frac trailers from here in New Brunswick and shipping them to Texas. There is always stuff moving across the border. I think a broker is the best bet unless you know someone

If you buy from an equipment dealer or even a used equipment dealer, a lot them advertise world wide shipping or to the US. For something that isn't real big there'd be a lot better chance of putting it on a back haul.