E-Mail 'Custom Cardboard Box Making, by Captain Nemo' To A Friend

26 Comments

1. Thanks captain Nemo, I’m going to try this very informative article.

2. Great winter or evening project. This would be perfect for a few of my storage needs. Thanks for sharing.

3. Wow, this is pretty interesting! I have tons of boxes laying around. Looks like it just takes a little time…

   Note to the editors: You totally missed a chance to publish this yesterday. Y’know, on Boxing Day?
   *ba-dum* …..I’ll show myself out. 😀

   1. Boxing day, very good Bear!

4. Love these.

   You can also make furniture — tables and cabinets are really good options. Use your favorite search engine to see what others have done.

   1. Agreed! When I was in design school one of our projects was to build a chair that would support your body weight using only cardboard and glue. Some pretty creative ideas! I was just annoyed because the small people in class had an advantage. I’m 6’4” so had to reinforce the chair quite a bit. card board is basically free lumber. I think of it as skeletonized MDF.
      Very creative ideas Cpt. Nemo! Thanks for sharing.

5. Very nice and useful article Cpt Nemo. Were any Nautilus harmed in making this project? 🙂

   Seriously a well written article, short and to the point. The Spar Varnish is a great point to add water resistance and additional hardening of the final product.

   Now if anyone a better writer than I wanted to do something with the Art of Tin- Smithing I would be thrilled. A lot can be made with a few #10 cans and CAREFUL use of tin snips (they come in many styles right hand cut and left hand cut as examples). Rocket stoves, wood stove top ovens and such.

   1. That’s a great suggestion, Michael. Points to a broader theme of creative re-tasking of materials.

6. This is soooo interesting. I was just looking online for cute storage boxes and yet I have a huge pile of great boxes to cut down and take to the recycling center. I had no idea one could make something strong that would last out of cardboard!

   In other news: https://justthenews.com/nation/economy/2020-shattered-records-gun-buying-activity-amid-lockdowns-riots-presidential

7. Adding aluminum foil between layers (wrap corners to ensure coverage) will add protection for electronics. Dont forget top and its sides .

   1. I don’t know about putting aluminum between the plies, as I don’t think the glue would stick well to the metal. Lining the inside of the box and lid with foil might work better. Though I would use copper foil, as aluminum creates an insulative oxide layer on the surface, and might prevent conduction. Copper compounds like oxide remains conductive, if I remember correctly (might be silver). 3M does make a copper shielding tape where even the glue is conductive. I’ve used that for making toploads on Tesla coils.

      Lining the cardboard with copper or aluminum foil would make a good ESD surface or storage media for integrated circuits. You could press a DIP into the lined cardboard if you don’t bend the leads.

8. What is the best tool / knife to use to cut your cardboard?

   1. I just use a box cutter knife, haven’t tried a table saw, but it might work.

      1. I’ll add, keep the knife blade sharp and use a cutting mat. If you snap the very tip of the blade off replace it as it makes cutting way harder. I’ve also used scalpels for very fine detail work or cutting curves.

      2. Tried the table saw. Clean cut on the top side, but a little tearing on the bottom. Still acceptable for projects though.

9. Really liked this. Cardboard is everywhere.

10. This is amazing, thank you! We have alot of cardboard, this will replace buying endless plastic bins that break regularly as well

11. I have always thought it interesting that the boxes that held bottles of solutions which are quite heavy were the ones glued instead of taped. They were so strong that sometimes I would have to use my feet to kick them apart in order to break them down for recycle at work. I have a question regarding rodents such as roaches and mice. Have you noticed any problems there or does the varnish help with that? Thanks for an interesting article.

    1. I haven’t seen any problems with boxes that I’ve built, but that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t chew through them. I’ve had regular boxes that they’ve gotten into. The varnish may help keep them out, and sealing the edges with glue should help keep bugs out.

12. This is really great, thanks for sharing it. I have tons of cardboard boxes around, mostly for sending all of the cr*p (I mean fine products!), that I sell on eBay. I love the gun cleaning tote. Definitely going to try this out.

13. I’ve been repurposing boxes and cutting dividers to store all the canning jars that I pick up at thrift shops, but now you’ve put a nifty NEW craft project on my radar. Awesome!

14. I remember hearing about this 40 years ago and I’ve tinkered with it over the years. I never thought of building boxes specific for hard to store objects. I’ll have to explore that.

    I typically use Amazon boxes, glue the bottom solid, then glue the sides inside the box to create trays. They are stiff, two layers on all sides, but they are not as sturdy as the author’s boxes. I have 3 of them that have acted as drawers in a purpose built wood cabinet sitting next to my desk. I’m thinking about adding more cardboard and thin strips of wood on the front where I pull them out of the cabinet due to stress at the corners. Wood boxes would have been more work, I wasn’t sure how long I would use the cabinent, I didn’t have thin wood to use for the drawings.

15. I wish you had provided photos or sketches of the steps. I am anything but mechanically minded, and as soon as you said to glue the inside flaps to the outside flaps, you lost me. Which are inside, and which are outside? Top and bottom flaps I understand, and also the sides of the box, but I have no idea what you are talking about.

    Clearly other people do, but some of us need pictures. Thank you.

    1. Picture a rectangular box. The inside flaps will be the shorter ones, and the longer ones the outside flaps. The inside flaps usually don’t meet in the center of the box.
       The outside flaps usually have packing tape on them if they weren’t glued to begin with.

       Hope that helps!

16. Hey Captain Nemo, great stuff.

    I’ve shrunk plenty of boxes down in my day to make a custom size, but never thought of going to this level. Thanks for sharing. If lumber prices don’t start coming back down I’ll have to start using your technique for all my projects. 🙂

    1. St. Funogas,

       You’d love my grandfather! Most of his wood was scabbed from firewood. Just about every wood box handle was hand carved, and attached with roofing tacks. His old boxes used to be our good water source. His boxes would hold 4 to 8 Tropicana 64oz glass jugs of well water. We made regular trips to bring water home until my grandfathers death. The only box to fail was one in which a jug cracked and soaked the box. He was always in the 1/2 acre garden, cutting wood, trapping rabbits, and building things. We still have his raspberries and rhubarb in our garden.

Comments are closed.