Folding cardboard

I am looking into the feasibility of making my own boxes. Getting custom boxes made in small quantities is problematic.

The cutting is not a problem, but how do I bend/fold them? Even a small packing box has a 60" seam down the long side. Using a big 60" bending brake seems like complete overkill and for larger boxes you would need an industrial sized brake which is ridiculous. There must be some simple device for doing this. Right now I am using a roller knife with a slot cut out of a long board as the die, but there has to be a better way.

Might look into a house siding brake. They are really long and built to be portable, so aren't heavily built. Or make one out of angle iron. There are a bunch of DIY brake builds on youtube that are very straight forward to build.

Box making machines just crease the corrugated where it is to be folded, then it can be folded by hand. A pair of wheels make the creases.

I bought a manual box making machine and a slitter on ebay so I can make my own boxes, small ones do turn up occasionally.

How far down the value chain are you willing to sink?

Folding boxes? For fucks sake!

We use part specific boxes and liners to handle easily damaged items in transit to finishing operations. Having them is more than worth the aggravation of making them, in terms of reduced damage to the parts. You can get real creative with cut and folded corrugated. My local small quantity source disappeared years ago, getting less than 500 of a box made is not feasible for me now. Making them is a cinch when you are equipped.

I have a programmable box maker in storage, haven't seen fit to get it working yet because the hand machine is so easy to use.

I think I'd go out and get one of those pizza cutter wheels to try creasing the cardboard along a straightedge, then simply hand folding the box up.

McMaster-Carr has a nice little tool we use often in our shop for making flaps on boxes we cut down:

McMaster-Carr

It works by perforating the cardboard on the inside of the fold.

Mud said:

Box making machines just crease the corrugated where it is to be folded, then it can be folded by hand. A pair of wheels make the creases.

I bought a manual box making machine and a slitter on ebay so I can make my own boxes, small ones do turn up occasionally.

Click to expand...

What kind of machine do you have?

It's an Autobox. British made, resembles this -



It feeds the sheet from right to left and creases the long way as it feeds with little wheels like a dull pizza cutter against a double edged wheel. There's a combined cutter that bites a piece out to make the flaps and at the same time creases the short way with a dull edge blade. When it's done you glue the little flap that holds the sides together and it's ready to fold up and tape shut.

I have made literally thousands of custom cardboard boxes- many not even rectangular, but wacky crystal shapes.

here is my box making tool kit:

Pencil
2" x 48" Mayes aluminum ruler
3M TC model hot glue gun, and 5/8" x 8" glue sticks for cardboard
Stanley Titan box knife
2 jorgensen Pony spring clamps
48" x 96" sheets of cardboard

You lay out the box geometry first- you will need to do it on paper, after a few hundred you can do it in your head and right on the cardboard.
That means, length by width by depth, plus tabs for gluing.

You draw the outline of the box on the cardboard with pencil.
then you cut out the parts that need to go, and the outline.

then, to address your question- using the ruler as a guide (I also have 2', 6', and 8' Mayes rulers) you gently score the cardboard on the Inside of the seam you want to fold. You dont cut thru even the top layer of sheet- you just score it.
The cardboard will then fold exactly where you want it.

Then, hot glue.
Use the pony clamps to hold the last two joints- the 3m glue should hold fast enough that you are constantly taking the clamp off the second to last seam and using it for the next one.
Final joints will not be open enough to use clamps, you just hold em shut for 30 seconds or so.

the knife- with holster-
Stanley Tools 1-55M Titan Fixed Blade Trimming Knife - Utility Knives - Amazon.com
I have owned a LOT of box knifes- this one is the best.
second best, is the Stanley 109 fixed blade.

The 3m guns are expensive. And worth it.

I make boxes on a 4' x 10' table that is topped by 3/4" particle board, so you can cut right thru the cardboard into the table without really damaging the table or dulling the blade.

The packaging engineer at the place I last worked made his prototype packaging from suitable sheets of corrugated. As I recall, he scored the sheets with a dull pizza cutter like wheel, which made the sheets fold easily along the score. He used box knives to do the cutting. He farmed the production out to a company that used rule dies to cut the blanks. I believe the rule dies included dull strips that were set shallower in the rule die than the sharp cutting strips. There is probably a corrugated box outfit in Cambridge that you could get a tour from to understand box production. Note that it is corrugated, not cardboard, to anyone in the industry.

Jim

I've used a pizza cutter with good results.

I just typed "cardboard box maker" into the Amazon search window and got lots of choices.

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Cutting the cardboard to size and to make flaps can be done very quickly and accurately on a table saw using a reasonably sharp carbide blade—-combination, 60 tooth, 80 tooth doesn’t matter much. Stack 5 sheets for efficiency. I’ve made my share of boxes for shipping the cast iron straight edges I make. Once you get the principles worked out it goes pretty fast.

Denis

If you have access to a laser cutter it is the best thing for making custom boxes, make cuts and folds in one setup. You can make the folds by setting the laser power low enough to nick the interior surface of the box at the fold. You will need to play with your settings to minimize charring on the edges but well worth the effort.

Yes, I was going to say a pizza cutter with a dulled edge and a straightedge.

I have a four foot plastic rule and I have put some electrical tape on the bottom. The electrical tape helps keep it in one place while I mark or cut with it. You can also get thin cork with adhesive already on the back but I like the electrical tape better because it is thinner.

Frank Ford said:

I think I'd go out and get one of those pizza cutter wheels to try creasing the cardboard along a straightedge, then simply hand folding the box up.

McMaster-Carr has a nice little tool we use often in our shop for making flaps on boxes we cut down:

McMaster-Carr

It works by perforating the cardboard on the inside of the fold.

Click to expand...

Something or nothing - several years back I needed some small boxes for a batch of parts that had to be individually packed, .......my local Chinese takeaway had just the right size container that my client liked - as in ''why didn't I think of that?'' etc etc

As was my local Chinese takeaway only too happy to sell me enough containers for the order.

Jobs a goodun

There is money in corrugated boxes, there are some people who have gone from not much to being very rich doing it over a short time.
Packaging can make up a reasonable figure of the the final product cost, they are clipping your ticket each time.
Its wise to trim the cost as much as practicable.
Getting boxes from other stores is worth it, once used but still good. some stores pay to get rid of them.

Street said:

There is money in corrugated boxes, there are some people who have gone from not much to being very rich doing it over a short time.
Packaging can make up a reasonable figure of the the final product cost, they are clipping your ticket each time.
Its wise to trim the cost as much as practicable.
Getting boxes from other stores is worth it, once used but still good. some stores pay to get rid of them.

Click to expand...

In Australia, it's become a monopoly with one company buying up all the competition and then selling medium sized unfolded flat boxes for $10 per box. So if the original poster made twenty boxes an hour that would be $200 value saved.

OUT OF STOCK - SAMPLE - RSC 43A LINEN - Standard Shipping Carton (Tape Bottom/Tape Top) - 1C Kraft Brown Board (Please allow 5 work days for dispatch)

We make fifty to a hundred boxes a year- most about 3"-6" thick, 2-4' wide, up to 8' long.
We buy 4x8 sheets, and both cut to size and score the the folds on the table saw. Hot glue to assemble.

14 years ago I dreamed on making my own custom cardboard boxes. On demand. For shipping my products. Even got a busted up big bed laser cutter for doing it. Never happened.

We have the regional cardboard box manufacturer blast out our most common size RSC. About $500 per pallet with our logo printed on them.

But what we struggled with is how ship UPS shippable but still heavy weldments. We have an Instapacker foam in bag system and were putting $15 of foam around the weldment and then into an expensive off the shelf Uline box. Works, but expensive.

Then I found these people:
Custom Cardboard, Plastic, and Die Cut Boxes | Custom Made Boxes(R)

First order was for quantity 25 of a double wall regular slotted cardboard box made to my exact size. 2 days lead time. Cost was less than a single wall off the uline box. I am thrilled. Now we drop in the weldment and tape it closed and there isn't $15 of foam and there isn't a decade worth of an odd size box on my pallet rack.