How to make a large custom-size cardboard box?

Question

My goal is to make a cardboard box that has the very unconventional size of 70" x 20" x 12". It's for transporting a piece of furniture but we don't want it to be any larger than that. I couldn't really find any sellers who could make a custom-size box this big (unless you buy in bulk), except for FedEx who apparently will do any large size, but I think the price is pretty steep.

Despite my best efforts researching, the only solutions I found were to shrink a refrigerator box using typical box resizing methods, or to cut a refrigerator box into flat sheets that I then use to build a new box from scratch. But I'm not really sure what's the best way to go about either of these methods since my desired box is so big. Something like this looks good, but I'm not sure exactly how that box was assembled. Any tips? Thanks

Answer 1

The box shown in the linked video was just assembled with sticky tape.

A similar way would be to get a box that is over-size, cut it in 3 directions, into 8 sections (with one corner in each section) and reassemble it with the parts overlapping. The cardboard doesn't need re-folding, and suffers no strength loss because of it.

Leaving the last two sections to re-assemble. The completed box has all the original edges and corners intact. This is absolutely different to the video, where the guy cuts along the original edges. But it does need very good sticky tape, on both sides of every join.

Of course, if the box is already the right length in any direction, it doesn't need to be halved that way.

Answer 2

Take three standard size 16x16x16 medium moving boxes. Parallel to where one of the creases going around the box would be, lightly score 4” in from the crease. Now fold on the crease so that you have a new box side that has one 20 inch side and one 12 inch side.

Score and crease the opposite side on the corresponding 4” from the original crease. You now have a 12x20x32 tube.

Do this with all three boxes.

Slide one box around the middle of the object, in such a way that it is no closer than 16” from either end.

On the other two boxes, on only one end of the box, cut a new flap section for the 4” you moved the crease. You now have a 4” flap, a 16” flap, and a 12” flap. Fold and tape the end of the box to keep it fixed in 12” 20” mode.

Slide the box over one end of the object. Tape it firmly onto the box around the middle. Do the same thing with the third box.

Can you tell I’ve moved myself 6 times in the past 10 years and have too much stuff?

This can work for any case where two times the sum of two of your shorter sides is the distance around a standard moving box.

And it is how I packaged my 14” cubes in a 12”x12”x16” standard book box. There was a small square that wasn’t covered at each end.