All You Need To Know About Cardboard Manufacturing

Nancy Parker
3 min readJan 20, 2022

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The cardboard box is amongst the most utilized packaging material. It is an essential item used in the manufacturing of packaging. We can see it on the shelves and throughout the supply chain. When viewing a cardboard box, usually branded and printed with inviting words and colors, it is tough to imagine that the life of a card box began as a tree. As consumers, we forget how card boxes came into existence, but we ponder that the packaging must be celebrated. So how a tree becomes a box eventually?

1. How is a tree used to manufacture cardboard boxes?

Whereas people preferably look for recycled cardboard for producing boxes, the life of a card box begins as a tree. Usually, the trees utilized for manufacturing cardboard boxes are softwood trees like fir and pine trees. People choose these trees for making cardboard because their fibers are long, which can help create a smooth finishing for the cardboard and create tension which adds to the strength of the cardboard box.

2. How is pulp produced to manufacture cardboard boxes?

From chopping the tree, wooden chips are made. These woody chips are cracked down into a pulp. You can grind the wood with a stone or cook the wooden chips chemically. With this, you can add chemicals like sodium sulfate to increase the pulp’s strength. The pulp is left with the same color for most of the cardboard. Nevertheless, you can also bleach it to create a white appearance.

3. What role fluting plays in manufacturing cardboard boxes?

Corrugated cardboard needs a couple of pieces of card or paper known as liners and a fluted cardboard portion, which sits between the liners. Fluting makes the cardboard powerful and provides it with more excellent protection against destruction. The paper rolls made of dried pulp are fed with a corrugated roll, which ruffles or flutes the paper. Fluting determines the quality of cardboard boxes. This is because greater fluting leads to greater use of material and, thus, greater strength utilized for good quality boxes.

4. How does the cutting of corrugated cardboard takes place?

Now, after completing corrugated cardboard, you have to cut the card to size depending upon the requirements of a cardboard box. There is an inclusive guide for cutting the card to size, and the programming of several machines is done for cutting the cardboard to scale depending upon the manufacturing demand automatically. Once the cutting of the basic outline is done, the card is given to the trimmer. People have developed the trimmer to deal with the complex aspects that the cutting machine fails to handle. The trimmer also does score the cardboard, making it simpler for folding when the box gets ready for assembly.

5. How the assembling of the cardboard box takes place?

Assembly will depend upon the box’s needs. The use of slots and flaps might be great for businesses interested in building their own boxes on demand. Typically, for more robust boxes stitching and glue are employed for folding sections together and keeping the pack safe. Corrugated board die-cutting machine producers all over the world are introducing specifically designed innovative machines for helping the packaging industry to build packages on demand.

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Nancy Parker

A writer, thinker, and lifelong learner. With a passion for exploring the depths of the human experience, I uses writing as a tool to share insights.