Crafting Protective Packaging with Recycled Paper for Delivery of Fragile Items
I’ve been looking for some solution to protect items we sell at our shop during shipping. There were a couple of times when corners cutting jigs and some other items were broken during delivery. And here’s my handcrafted solution.
It’s was my standard way of doing things to reuse most of the packaging I get with the supplies and tools I buy. So I’ve been using some foam plastic for the most brittle of the tools and jigs. However, reusing packaging is good, but I wanted to find a bit more sustainable solution.
This idea came to me thanks to a friend of mine, who’s an associate director at a factory that makes packaging out of recycled paper. I even inquired if he can produce something for me. And for sure he could. Starting with 100.000 pieces =)
Months passed and other things always got in the way. The next time I made progress was thanks to a documentary that showed how paper pulp is made into molds with a vacuum. As well as this video from Two Rivers Paper showing how the use vacuum table to suck excess water from paper molds:
So, I swiftly sketched a design for a vacuum mold for making protective packaging for our corner cutting jigs.
These molds worked well, but what I forgot to think about was to check whether my vacuum cleaner was ok with sucking excess water. Well, it wasn’t. Nothing serious, it still works. But I will definitely not use is this way anymore.
The next version of the mold was designed for pressing paper pulp. And while I loved the vacuuming process, this solution also works pretty well.
I started with packaging for corner cutting jigs. Next, I added designs for some of our gauges. Currently, I’m working on packaging for our Tombow glue holders.
And, of course, I added some color!
The production process is pretty fast. First, you prepare paper pulp. Preferably, there shouldn’t be much water in the mix. Forming takes just under a minute. Finally, I set the mold to dry overnight near a source of heat – my computer =)
What do you think about it? It looks like a solution to artisans who make things in small quantities.
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