Box Manufacturing Process Explained

One of the most used packaging for any product is cardboard packaging. Cardboard boxes are, of course, the main product for packaging in the packaging industries. However, cardboard boxes are made of trees. 

Moreover, as you know, cardboard boxes were once a tree, so in this article, you will learn about the manufacturing process. Custom-printed cardboard box manufacturers are always looking for new ways and are always ready to design packaging boxes with a unique and new style. 

The basics of cardboard box manufacturing are just as described forward. The cardboard boxes are generally made of flute, which is recycled paper. This paper is placed between two liners, just like making a sandwich. These two liners are also manufactured with recycled material, such as old cardboard or second-hand paper. 

Furthermore, if you want to make high-quality cardboard boxes, you can use pure cardboard rather than recycled ones as it can also be recycled. So, these were the basics, and now we will move on to the process of manufacturing.

1- The Trees

Since custom printing cardboard boxes, manufacturers always look for recycled materials for manufacturing cardboard boxes. However, it is also crucial to know that cardboard boxes started their life as a tree (as described above). Generally, for manufacturing cardboard boxes, softwood trees such as pine and fir trees are used. 

Now, the question that appears is why these trees are selected. Therefore, here’s the reason that these trees contain long fibers that create tension and increase their strength. In addition, they also help to create a smooth finish for the cardboard boxes. Many custom-printed manufacturers prefer to use wood from sustainable and well-organized forests. Anyhow, the tree cutting will not significantly affect the forest. 

The colors of the boxes will be different with different trees used. Consider that silver birch trees box manufacturing, then the color of the boxes will be dark brown. At the same time, spruce will give the boxes a light brown color. Chinese trees will give a yellowish color because of the increased straw content in their kraft. 

2- Making Pulp

After the trees cutting into small pieces, making pulp involves a long process to ensure that the tree or pulp is suitable for making boxes. Usually, small pieces of trees are called logs which are inserted into a machine and crushed into small chips. 

The two processes used for converting the chips into pulp are chemical pulping and mechanical pulping. Chemical pulping involves cooking chipped logs to reduce the number of raw materials in the cellulose fibers. Chemical cooking is also of two types; one is sulfite, and the other is sulfate. The most used chemical process is sulfate, which uses alkaline solutions by adding sodium sulfate to digest the wood and increase its strength.

While in mechanical pulping, the grinding of chips is involved in converting wood into cellulose fibers, and the logs are rubbed against a stone to make pulp. The pulp made at the end of the process is the same color as the wood, so it is bleached during the pulping process to create a white appearance. 

3- Channelling (Fluting)

Immediately after the pulp has dried, you can make cardboard. Recall the liners described above; for making each cardboard, two pieces of paper or cards called liners are required. The fluted cardboard was placed between the two liners. 

The fluting or corrugation process helps increase the cardboard’s strength and makes it even stronger to deal with any problem (like protection against any damage) during shipping. 

The level of fluting required will decide the quality of your boxes. Increased use of fluting will result in high-quality cardboard boxes and offer great strength and protection as it requires a high use of materials. For creating the flutes, corrugation machines involve the use of hot steam. Consequently, each side of the flute sticks it to the liners.

4- Cutting and Trimming 

Once you have made corrugated cardboard, then it’s time for the cutting of edges according to the required shape and size of the boxes. As we live in the modern era and technology is increasing daily, machines tend to cut the cardboards to their required demands.

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