Shipping headaches

I upgraded from 1.3.9h to 1.5.1 after backing up my files and database. When I tried to restore, it wouldn't work. So I have had to rebuild the site from scratch. Everything is working properly now EXCEPT the shipping.

We use free shipping for orders shipped within the United States and a graduated cost for international shipping that can be based either on item or weight. I had it set up so that it worked perfectly in the older version but now nothing I do replicates that success.

I have gone over all the FAQs, checked out this forum and read the manual, following instructions as I read. Nothing works.

What I need is for shipping to be $0 in the US and $8.50 for the first item/pound and $4.00 for each item/pound after that for international. All items weigh 1 lb. Heaviest shipment would be 50 lbs.

Can anybody help me? Please. I've been working 4 days on this and I'm really afraid of making it worse. But I need to get the store up as soon as possible.

What should happen if you get to 50+ lbs for International?

It would be broken into a second shipment. It is really unlikely that international customers will be ordering more than 50 lbs. worth at a time. These are books, none over 1 lb. individually. Most common large order is 3 books.

Can you please reply to jbandsma###################### ? I don't get in here very often.

If the US is Free Shipping ALWAYS, then go to the Modules ... Order Total ... Shipping ot_shipping ... and set is up to be

Allow Free Shipping: true
Free Shipping For Orders Over: 0.00
Provide Free Shipping For Orders Made: National

Next, go to Modules ... Shipping ... and click on Per Item item and set that to

Shipping Cost: 4.00
Handling Fee: 4.50

And set your Zone for the Rest of the world ... as in all countries except the United States ...

A search in the FAQs for:
zone

should come up with information on setting up Zones, such as:
http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?308-prepared-zone-definitions

Thank you. I'll have a go at that and see what happens.

No, the per item cost doesn't work. It ends up charging 8.50 per book when it should be 8.50 for the first book and 4.00 for each book after that. And I'm having a really dumb day because I can't figure out WHERE to put in that information to define a zone for the rest of the world and exclude the US. Sorry for being such a pain. Server crashes can be a pita.

Are you sure that on the Per Item you set it up as:

Shipping: 4.00
Handling 4.50

To give you:
Qty 1: 4.50 + 1x4.00 = 8.50
Qty 2: 4.50 + 2x4.00 = 12.50
Qty 3: 4.50 + 3x4.00 = 16.50