Thread: Straight Razor Boxes

Just out of interest, do you also make boxes out of cardboard, similar to "old style" boxes? Just a personal preference, but I actually prefer them Though your wood boxes do look very nice.

Steven

You know, I've never thought about making a cardboard box. I don't see why I couldn't but that's the kind of project you might consider doing for yourself just for the fun of it. It'd be quite simple, really. At least, here's how I'd go about it.

Materials:
Wood 1/2" x 1" x 6 1/4"
Cardboard, 3/32" thick
Cardboard, 1/32" thick
Plasticized (i.e. relatively waterproof) decorative paper sheet, 8 1/2 x 11.
Tall Mason Jar
White paste glue (Elmers or another variety)
Water


1. Create a solid wood blank the size of the interior space you require. More often than not 1/2" x 1" x 6 1/4" was commonly used, though you can make yours larger if required. We'll assume that dimension for this method.

2. Lightly coat the base in vegetable oil or cooking spray.

3. Buy a piece of cardboard 3/32 thick and one pice a full 1/32 thick.

4. Cut the 3/32 cardboard piece to 7 1/4" x 12 1/4".

5. Fill a tall mason jar with a mix of warm water and white elmer's glue. (doesn't have to be elmers, but white glue is important). I would try a 1:1 mix and then thin with water as needed.

6. Soak the paper in the thinned glue solution.

7. Wrap the paper around the wood base three times, leaving 1/2" paper extended over each end. You're wrapping to achieve a thickness of 1/32".

8. Fold the ends to close them.

9. Let dry overnight.

10. Cut the box at the 4" point to make one half box 4 inches long, the other half 2 1/4 inches long. I'd probably cut with a Exacto knife.

11. Cute the 1/32 thick unused cardboard piece to 5 1/16" x 2 3/4". (we'll call this piece U)

12. Cut the decorative, plasticized piece to 1 3/4" x 2 3/4" (we'll call this piece D).

13. Glue D across end of U, leaving 1/4" extra on end.

14. Wrap U to fit inside deep cardboard box end. Make sure M is facing out.

15. Glue U inside deep cardboard end.

16. Let dry.

17. When dry, apply glue interior side of of D and fold D inward around U.

18. Let dry and your finished.


If you wanted to make it interesting you could print a design lengthwise on the long sheet of 3/32" paper before gluing and wrapping to the base.

I would create the design in a program like Microsoft Publisher, making the design 6 1/4" x 1" long (or fitting in a space of that size) and print it on the 12 1/4" x 7 1/4" sheet, centering between the two remaining 1/2" sections of the 7 1/4 dimension and placing it on the the last 1 1/2" of the 12 1/4 dimension leaving 1/2" for side wrapping.

wow... simple as that. Nice Chris.

Even though I'm juggling several projects I just had to give this idea a try. I tried my first cardboard straight razor box tonight. Just like any new project it's going to take some trial and error to get it perfect but I think I can. I see many possiblities for this, particularly custom graphics per user specification. I'll keep at it and let you know how it goes.

Ah! Acutally, my first update is that I was able to make a waterproof box out of relatively thin paper. That surprised me as I thought, surely it would be too porous to ever waterproof. I didn't use Elmers glue or go by the method I outlined below. I may give that method a try tomorrow (Sat) if I have time.

Thanks again, Steven, for the great suggestion!

Originally Posted by nerobot

Just out of interest, do you also make boxes out of cardboard, similar to "old style" boxes? Just a personal preference, but I actually prefer them Though your wood boxes do look very nice.

Steven

Bookmarked the new site and placed an order on it. Can't have a razor without a nice wood box. I have two of his boxes so far, both are excellent. I look forward to my third.

Thanks Chris,

Glen

These are beautiful! I like the curly pine quite a bit. And yeah, if you have too many of one laying around, put them up in BST, at $20 a piece you'll be on backorder soon .

Might this be added to the wiki?

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Might this be added to the wiki?

Well, I'm really not up on the Wiki but as I understand it, its more of an encyclopedia of sorts. I would think this should be added to our list of people providing services wherever that is. You might want to ask Dave or Bruno about it.

Is the site down,Chris? I can't get it to work.

Originally Posted by Chrisgiraffe

...

The site is:
Coming Soon...

I'm listing updates on box production and future projects there under the 'upcoming projects' link....

link does not work