Cardboard Bins Made from Scratch

I needed some bins, and in poking around the web I saw some cardboard ones in a picture. This got me to thinking that the bins would be a good solution for my needs.

I proceeded to investigate the cost and the prices were outside of my budget, plus I had to buy a hundred of them to boot.

This kinda chapped my butt. Chapped Butt Stick is something in short supply around my garage so I set out to sooth the source of irritation.

I sat down and began noodling what I needed to do to make my own. I quickly discovered that it isn't hard to design a cardboard bin, cut the template, and make my own from scrap cardboard.

 It's a bit tough to see, but I drew out the tabs and lines for the folds, plus drew the notches I needed to tuck the flaps into. The key in the design is to account for the thickness of the cardboard when working on fold lines. Once I had the hang of it the design went pretty quickly.

 I then cut and folded together my prototype. I learned that it is important to hammer the fold lines to get straight folds exactly where I wanted them. I used a straightedge and mallet to do this.

 Fits in the drawer exactly the way I wanted it.

 So I made five more of them for that drawer. I discovered that there will occasionally be some cutting and trimming to make them fit if an exact fit is required. A decent pair of scissors did the tweaking nicely.

And here's the completed template waiting for me to make more of that design when I need it. I put the dimensions and uses on the template to make it easier to identify should I ever end up with a collection of them.

It took an hour or so to design the first template, then another hour or so to make a second from the template, test and tweak it. After that, cutting and folding one takes about 5-10 minutes depending on the sharpness of your box cutter and your skill. What I do is simply cut the desired bin directly from the template instead of drawing the lines and using a straightedge to make cuts. I did this by placing my railroad rail/anvil on the template to hold it down as I made cuts. It's much quicker and I had no problems with cutting into the template as I made cuts.

Along the way I noticed that Elmer's Glue would work great if extra strength were needed to keep the bin from coming apart.  Just apply a daub where the tabs fold together and it should make the bin as permanent as any cardboard box can be.

Ahh, another victory over the garage improvement budget!  Total Cost: $0.00