How Paper Boxes Are Made / A practical and instructive book telling how the beginner may manufacture all kinds of paper boxes, with special chapters on the printing department for paper box plants, embossing, gold-leafing, label work, etc.

by Robert F. Salade

CORRUGATED PAPER PRODUCTS AND PAPER CANS

ANOTHER important branch of the paper box manufacturing industry is that which is devoted to corrugated paper products. This is a very large branch of the industry and it is constantly growing and expanding. With the perfection of paper cans and big shipping boxes made of paper, new fields of tremendous proportions have been opened to the manufacturers, and the future for this business is glowing with possibilities. The day may come when ordinary wooden shipping boxes and tin cans will be “ghosts of the past.”

Today we see hundreds of different kinds of merchandise packed in large-size corrugated paper boxes—the same kinds of merchandise which in other times had been packed in wooden boxes. Today we see many different kinds of food, powders, liquids, etc., packed in paper cans—the same variety of goods which formerly had been packed in tin cans. Every day brings new uses for corrugated paper boxes, and also for paper cans. During the last year or two orders for these products have been increasing so rapidly that some of the manufacturers have been unable to keep up with the demand.

Corrugated paper boxes are now being used in place of wooden boxes for such a great variety of merchandise that it would be impossible to enumerate all the uses. For example, the standard slotted carton is made in different sizes up to a size where the gross weight of the box and contents amount to 90 pounds, and where the dimensions of the box, with length, width and depth added, are 70 inches. A corrugated box of this size will be accepted for freight shipment. Some of the articles which a slotted carton may be used for are: books, boots and shoes, butter, canned goods in glass or tin, cereals, cigars and cigarettes, coffee and tea, collars and cuffs, confections, dry goods and clothing, electric lamps, glassware, hardware, mattresses, patent medicines, small furniture, shirts, toys, soap, etc. For certain articles, like mattresses, for example, the dimensions of a corrugated box may be as great as 100 inches for acceptable freight shipment.

Some of the advantages of these large corrugated shipping containers over ordinary wooden boxes are: light weight, the prevention of breakage to contents, water and air-tight, easier to close and open and easier to handle by all concerned. On account of the corrugated container being firmly sealed with tape, the box is practically safe from freight robbers who find it an easy matter to “lift” the cover-boards of a wooden, nailed box. This is one of the many reasons why corrugated containers are now being used extensively for export shipments.

Paper cans are now being used in place of tin cans for cereals, tea and coffee, spices, baking powder, cleansing powder, tobacco, snuff, salt, gas mantles, drugs, etc. Paper cans are more economical than tin cans; are more sanitary, lighter in weight, and are easier to open by the consumer.

Paper Cans and Cores made on Langston equipment.