Folding Box Project

I first started this folding box project by making my bone knives for scoring and folding boxes more easily. I designed the bone knives by tracing the picture available on the class Google Drive, using the 3 point line tool. I then sanded the tools so that they came to a subtle point.

For my box design, I wanted to make something utilitarian, and I wanted my box to be rather sleek yet useful. After scrolling around Packaging Dies documents, I found this 3-Drawer Box and knew I wanted to make it. It combined the usefulness that I wanted with a creative door design.

For the design, I converted all the dotted lines the document provided and replaced them with complete lines. I made all the exterior lines red and the interior ones blue, as the red lines would be for cutting the paper and the blue ones would be for scoring.

The bottom left picture shows the design cut in paper, and the bottom right shows the cuts of two drawer designs in thin mat board. For the laser cutter settings, I used the settings found in class.

After all the parts of the design were cut, it was time to assemble. I used adhesive spray to glue together large surfaces of mat board with its corresponding paper part. Then, I glued the tabs down onto the mat board and assembled the pieces together. The pictures below show the process of making one drawer.

The next pictures show the assembly for the rest of the box. I used the drawers to mark where the dividers should have been, and I glued the rest of the box together. As for the doors, I first glued the back paper panel to the back of the box then glued each door on each side.

There were a few design problems with the dividers, as they were not wide enough. This caused the box to be smaller in general, making it harder to fit the drawers in it. In order to fix this, I folded the paper tabs smaller and made the dividers wider. I also found that the drawers were too tall, and I used scissors to cut off a millimeter off the top of each drawer. Because of the tight time limit, I could not redesign the tabs or the drawers, so I had to compromise and make quick changes.

Overall, I am proud of how the box turned out for a first make. I am glad that the "doors" of the box fit and closed well, and that the drawers managed to fit between the dividers and had enough room to easily move out. Although there are issues in the design and neatness of the box (because I often re-adjusted and re-glued the tabs), I think the functionality of it makes up for small errors. The issues noted above hindered my progress a little, but I found myself adapting and "overcoming" them by coming up with temporary fixes. From the process, I learned that I should leave time for myself to redesign a product, and that nothing will every turn out perfect in the first try. Aside from the physical process of making the box, I learned multiple things about such projects in general. I learned that I should better plan the making process of the boxes, and that I can, when I am too busy, choose slightly simpler projects that do not require as much time, even if I enjoy making challenging creations.