I told myself I would put together this thread a while back and now I am finally getting to it.

For those of us who have shipped, plan on shipping or just want to ship, finding readily available boxes can be a pain. If you order them online they are uber-expensive unless you buy in bulk, but who wants to store 25 boxes? Not me. About a year ago I started making my own boxes and it is the only way to go.

Supplies:

Ruler
Straight edge/exacto knife
Sharpie
Styrofoam (.75" thickness 4'x8' sheets are about $10 at Lowe's, HD etc.)
Cardboard (I reuse old boxes or cut them to size)
Hot glue gun (low heat, high heat melts the styro)
Packing tape

These boxes are made for a Priority and Express shipment that are going out tomorrow. And it begins...



Step 1 - Take any old box that looks like it would work for shipping


Step 2 - Cut the tape from the box and cut one of the corners so it looks like this


Step 3 - Tape the box up so that the outside of the original box is now the inside so the box does not have any labels or markings visible



Step 4 - Take the measurements of your box (length, width, depth). Write down the measurements like this; 2 pieces that are the length and the width exactly (These will be the bottom and the top of the lining) 2 pieces that are the length by the height minus 1.5", And 2 pieces that are the length minus 1.5" by the height minus 1.5" inches. (the styro is .75" thick, so with the top and the bottom it will take 1.5" off of the original height and it does the same for the length considering the length pieces run the full length of the box. We want this thing to be flush inside the cardboard box).


Step 5 - Outline pieces on the blank side of the styro sheet using a sharpie using the measurements that you just took down. Pretend this is like tetris and you want all the pieces to fit. As you can see I had to make some changes for my pieces to fit.


Step 6 - After the pieces are outlined, take a straight-edge and use a quick up and down sawing motion to cut pieces. If you drag the straight-edge then the edges of your styrofoam will not be smooth...it takes some practice


Step 7 - Peel the plastic covering from the separate styro pieces and fit them into the box to make sure your measurements were correct.


Step 8 - Take a LOW-HEAT hot glue gun and glue all of the places where styrofoam meets styrofoam.



Step 9 - I always glue the lid down after the frags are packed up just for that little extra security. Here is the finish product (the top pieces are what is propped in the middle of each box)



I hope some of you guys out there can use this. Enjoy!

iRikey.....

nice thread, and as someone that's gotten frags from him they came in as happy as could be. would be nice to see the filling and frag packing added to the op.

Might as well show how you put water in the bags and tie them. Then how you fill the box and add the heat pack. Then a sticky would be next.

this has been done already

Cool...


I will add to it later Brad. Finally was able to get around to this.

If you want to make it easier on yourself, why not purchase a flat bundle of ready-to-go boxes, without insulation. Then they'll be a standard size, and you can have all of your styrofoam pieces pre-cut and waiting for you to assemble.

Better than custom-fitting to every box every time you ship, assuming you do a lot of shipping.

I thought of going that route. I typically use the USPS flat rate boxes for all Priority shipments which gives me standard measurements, but for a single frag I like to make it smaller. Making the boxes from cardboard doesn't take that long, maybe 5 to ten minutes if I am doing it from scratch. Either way, if I had a bunch of boxes pre-made I would still have to store them somewhere and that is one of the reasons I don't buy the lined boxes in bulk. I don't ship enough to do it that way yet, maybe 4 or so packages a month, so it is not that big of a time consumer. This was more for people who think they might ship a couple times a year with trades, sales, etc. and want to make their own boxes.


AHH, I re-read your post and it isn't a bad idea at all. Hmmmm.