GB2227731A - Lidded boxes and manufacture thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

Card having at least one decorative surface is cut and creased to produce a blank for forming a box or lid. Wall portions 26-29 are then folded relatively to a bottom portion 21 about their respective crease lines in order to provide double-thickness walls; in the case of at least two of said double-thickness walls, tongues 34-37 attached to others or another of said double-thickness walls are sandwiched between the respective wall portions. The box or lid is completed by the placing, against the bottom portion 21 and within the double-thickness walls, of another piece of said card with the decorative surface thereof uppermost, said other piece of card trapping (by reason of the thickness of the card) the free edges of all of the folded double-thickness walls. <IMAGE>

Description

LIDDED BOXES AND THE MANUFACTURE THEREOF This invention relates to boxes and a method of manufacture thereof.

In the manufacture of fancy presentation boxes (in which could be placed, for example, a bracelet or a wrist watch which has been bought by a customer from a jewellery shop) , it is known to use a cut and creased blank and pre-pasted paper.

Such a blank is illustrated in Figure 1 of the accompanying drawing in which the shape of the outline of the cut blank is drawn in uninterrupted lines and in which the creases made in the blank are shown by interrupted or dotted lines. The crease lines may be regarded as having delimited tabs 10,11, 12 and 13 and, if said tabs are rotated through 900 about their respective creases (say, upwardly out of the plane of the paper) , the sides of a box or of a lid are formed, the bottom of said box or lid being the portion 14. It will be realised that the adjacent short sides of the folded-up tabs (for example, the short sides 15, 16 of the tabs 12, 13) will be very close to one another if not in contact with one another.This folded-up condition is maintained by the pre-pasted paper which not only covers all of the outer surfaces of the tabs 10 to 13 and of the portion 14 but is also folded over the long edges of said tabs in order also to cover at least a part of the inner surface of each of said tabs; thus, the four pairs of adjacent sides 15, 16 are held in place firmly by virtue of the pre-pasted paper covering said adjacent sides on the outside and on the inside of the box or lid.

The card from which such a box or lid can be made will vary, of course, in dependence upon the intended use of the lidded box, but typically a box for a lady's bracelet could be of 1 mm thickness.

In general, a lidded box manufactured as described above is satisfactory but it has its limitations. Very often, the paper covering which is used does not adhere perfectly to the inside surfaces of the tabs 10 to 13; moreover, the covering paper cannot always be forced right into the inside angle which is made by the adjacent tabs at each of the corners of the box or lid. Each box or lid has its appearance spoiled by the fact that the covering paper seldom extends right down to the portion 14; this results from the fact that the standard box covering machines only turn over 12 to 13 mm of paper onto the inner surfaces of the tabs, regardless of box size.Lastly, it is very difficult if not virtually impossible (when manufacturing large quantities at high speeds) to ensure that the various edges of the covering paper are all perfectly aligned with one another on said inner surfaces of the four tabs.

It is the principal object of the present invention to provide a method of manufacture of lidded boxes which will avoid the imperfections (discussed above) in the final product.

It is a subsidiary object of the present invention to improve the production rate of lidded boxes without the necessity to employ more expensive machinery which has been designed for the purpose.

According to a first aspect, the present invention consists in a method of making a lidded box comprising the following steps, for each of the box and the lid therefor, namely, (1) folding a cut and creased blank of card having at least one decorative surface in order to provide a bottom of a single thickness of said card connected to four erected walls each of which consists of two equidimensioned portions of card folded flat against one another; (2) ensuring, during the preceding step, that tongues connected to portions of at least two of said four walls become sandwiched between the two portions of the other two walls for the purpose of keeping the walls erect; and (3) maintaining said two portions of card of all of said walls in their folded-flat conditions by placing, against said bottom and within the erected walls, another piece of card whose thickness is such as to prevent said several two portions from unfolding, whereby a box and lid are produced in which all exterior surfaces, and all inner faces of said walls, are constituted by said decorative surface of said card.

According to a second aspect, the present invention consists in a method of manufacture of a lidded box, said method comprising for each of the box and the lid the following steps, namely, (1) stamping out a shaped blank from card material of which one face has been printed, foil-coated or otherwise prepared so as to exhibit an attractive decorative finished surface; (2) cutting and creasing said shaped blank in order to delimit a bottom portion, four creased wall portions and four tongues, said tongues being connected to at least two opposite wall portions and each wall portion being creased half-way between its free edge and the crease at which it is connected to said bottom portion;; (3) erecting the 'walls of the box or lid by folding the respective wall portion not only along its halfway crease in order to bring its free edge to a position closely adjacent to the crease at which it is connected to said bottom portion but also along said crease at which it is connected to said bottom portion, and ensuring that each tongue is sandwiched between the limbs of a folded wall portion; and (4) placing in the erected box or lid another piece of card material which is thick enough to trap all four free edges of said wall portions; whereby not only is the whole exterior of the erected box or lid constituted by said attractive finished surface but also the whole of the surface of each wall of the erected box or lid is constituted by said attractive finished surface.

The present invention further consists in a method of manufacture of a lidded box, and also a lidded box per se made by said method, substantially as hereinafter described with reference to Figures 2 to 5 of the accompanying diagrammatic drawings, in which:- Figure 2 illustrates a plan view of a cut and creased blank suitable for making a box or lid; and Figures 3 to 5 illustrate the folding technique, suitably modified in order to keep the drawings simple, employed to erect said box or lid in accordance with the invention.

Referring to Figure 2, there is illustrated therein a shaped blank 20 which has a bottom portion 21 delimited by crease lines 22, 23, 24, 25. There are four wall portions 26, 27, 28, 29 which have crease lines 30, 31, 32,33, respectively; said crease lines effectively divide the wall portions into two parts which are equal in area and shape or substantially so. In the embodiment of blank which has been illustrated, the two wall portions 27, 29 have attached tongues, the tongues 34, 35 being attached to the wall portion 27 and the tongues 36, 37 being attached to the wall portion 29.

There are crease lines 38. 39, 40, 41 and there are cuts 42, 43,44,45.

Referring to Figures 3 to 5, it is to be understood that the folding technique is hereinafter explained by reference to only two wall portions in the interests of keeping the drawings simple. Thus, starting with the wall portion 29, the tongues 36,37 are folded upwardly (from the flat) about their crease lines 40, 41 and the wall portion 29 is folded upwardly about its crease line 25 (ee Figure 3). Thereafter, the wall portion 27 and its tongues 34, 35 would be similarly treated.

Now, the wall portion 26 is folded upwardly about its crease line 22 and is thereafter folded again about its crease line 30 to bring it into the state shown in Figure 4 in which tongue 37 is sandwiched between the two halves of the wall portion, said halves having been folded flat against one another. It will be obvious that the tongue 34 of the wall portion 27 will similarly be sandwiched between said two halves. Thereafter, the wall portion 28 would be similarly treated in order to sandwich the tongues 35, 36 of the wall portions 27, 29.

The wall portion 29 is now folded about its crease line 33 and the same would then be done to the wall portion 27.

In this condition, the free edges 46, 47, 48, 49 (Figure 2) of the various wall portions 26, 27, 28, 29 will be located within the box or lid very close to the respective crease lines 22, 23, 24, 25, as will be seen by looking at Figure 5.

Lastly, a piece of card (not illustrated) is pushed downwardly into the erected box or lid, said piece of card being of a thickness sufficient to act as a block against any of the folded wall portions becoming unfolded. In other words, the free edges 46, 47, 48, 49 of the wall portions would become trapped behind and held very firmly by the edges of said piece of card.

The decorative or attractively finished surface of the shaped blank 20 is the surface which is not shown in Figure 2. Consequently, as the various wall portions and tongues are folded upwardly (namely, out of the plane of the paper on which Figure 2 is drawn), the entire exterior of the box or lid will have that decorative or attractively finished appearance and so also will the inwardly facing surfaces of the erected walls (e.g. the surfaces 50, 51 in Figure 5).

The necessary folding can be done easily by unskilled labour who can work at home. The card from which the shaped blank is made can be provided, on one or even on both surfaces, with a very wide range of attractive appearances (e.g. by printing or by the bonding of foil thereto) by specialist manufacturers.

It would be feasible to ensure, at least for some designs, that a tongue is attached to each wall portion but it is considered that doing so would unnecessarily complicate the folding technique.

Obviously, in making any lidded boxes, different card thicknesses will be used but employing the method according to the present invention will enable great economies to be made. Thus, whereas for an existing covered box to be made using the technique described with reference to Figure 1 one would expect to buy from the card manufacturer at the rate of one thousand sheets per ton, using the method according to the invention will enable much thinner card to be used with the result that the card manufacturer would be able to produce three thousand sheets to the ton.

The production rate can be vastly increased.

At present and using the following figures only as an example of what can be done with conventional box covering machines, from four machines one would be capable of producing, say, 5000 lidded boxes per day per machine. Any greater production rate would require either more conventional machines, or complete redesign of those machines in order to try to improve their production rate. By contrast, using a blank cutting machine which will also crease the card and which will cut and crease four blanks simultaneously, one would expect to produce 8000 blanks per hour; this enormous production can be dealt with by an appropriate number of out-workers, thereby making it possible to know what the fixed overheads will be in advance.

Claims (7)

CLAIMS:

1. A method of making a lidded box comprising the following steps, for each of the box and the lid therefor, namely, (1) folding a cut and creased blank of card having at least one decorative surface in order to provide a bottom of a single thickness of said card connected to four erected walls each of which consists of two equidimensioned portions of card folded flat against one another; (2) ensuring, during the preceding step, that tongues connected to portions of at least two of said four walls become sandwiched between the two portions of the other two walls for the purpose of keeping the walls erect; and (3) maintaining said two portions of card of all of said walls in their folded-flat conditions by placing, against said bottom and within the erected walls, another piece of card whose thickness is such as to prevent said several two portions from unfolding, whereby a box and lid are produced in which all exterior surfaces, and all inner faces of said walls, are constituted by said decorative surface of said card.

2. A method of manufacture of a lidded box, said method comprising for each of the box and the lid the following steps, namely, (1) stamping out a shaped blank from card material of which one face has been printed, foil-coated or otherwise prepared so as to exhibit an attractive decorative finished surface; (2) cutting and creasing said shaped blank in order to delimit a bottom portion, four creased wall portions and four tongues, said tongues being connected to at least two opposite wall portions and each wall portion being creased half-way between its free edge and the crease at which it is connected to said bottom portion;; (3) erecting the walls of the box or lid by folding the respective wall portion not only along its halfway crease in order to bring its free edge to a position closely adjacent to the crease at which it is connected to said bottom portion but also along said crease at which it is connected to said bottom portion, and ensuring that each tongue is sandwiched between the limbs of a folded wall portion; and (4) placing in the erected box or lid another piece of card material which is thick enough to trap all four free edges of said wall portions; whereby not only is the whole exterior of the erected box or lid constituted by said attractive finished surface but also the whole of the surface of each wall of the erected box or lid is constituted by said attractive finished surface.

3. A method of manufacture of a lidded box substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying diagrammatic drawings.

4. A lidded box when made in accordance with the method claimed in any one of Claims 1, 2 and 3.

5. A lidded box as claimed in Claim 4, wherein each wall has at least a tongue integral therewith.

6. A lidded box as claimed in Claim 4 or Claim 5, wherein the card from which the box and the lid are constructed has both of its surfaces decorated.

7. Any features of novelty, taken singly or in combination, of the embodiments of the invention hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying diagrammatic drawings.