Stop buying the wrong box.Make the right one.
BUILD YOUR OWN BOX is a compact manual cutting and scoring system being developed to let small businesses create useful shipping boxes on demand from suitable corrugated cardboard.
Choose a template. Position the board. Score it. Cut it. Fold it. Build the box you actually need.
Why are small businesses still buying so many different boxes?
Selling different products often means keeping different packaging.
A small business might need one box for a book, another for clothing, another for a gift set, another for a larger order and another for an awkward product.
That creates a surprisingly irritating cycle:
- 01Buy boxes
- 02Store boxes
- 03Run out of the size you actually need
- 04Order more
Meanwhile, perfectly usable corrugated material may already be arriving at the business inside deliveries.
Build Your Own Box started with a different question
What if the box wasn't the product?What if the ability to make the box was?
That is the idea behind the system.
From sheet to shipping box.
Place
Position suitable corrugated board against the machine's datum guides.
Select
Choose the template/cassette corresponding to the required box geometry.
Score
The guided scoring head creates repeatable fold positions.
Cut
The guarded cutting cartridge creates perimeter and flap cuts.
Fold
Remove the completed blank and fold along the scored lines.
Box
Tape or otherwise close the carton as appropriate.
One machine. Lots of boxes.
The proposed BUILD YOUR OWN BOX machine is deliberately mechanical. No CNC controller. No motors. No computer. No complicated powered cutting equipment.
- Footprint
- Approx. 700 × 500 mm
- Working zone
- Approx. 600 × 420 mm
- Material
- Approx. 2–7 mm corrugated cardboard
- Power
- None
- Operation
- Manual
- System
- Interchangeable cutting/scoring head + interchangeable box templates
The machine is only half the idea.
The other half is the Box Library.
Instead of buying another machine when you need another type of box, you add another template. One machine can gradually become more useful to a business as its template library grows.
Small Parcel
Target internal dimensions
200 × 150 × 100 mm
Small products, accessories, cosmetics, compact online orders.
Individual template
Medium Shipping
Target internal dimensions
300 × 220 × 150 mm
General-purpose shipping carton.
Individual template
Large Retail
Target internal dimensions
400 × 300 × 200 mm
Larger products and multi-item orders.
Individual template
Prototype target dimensions. Final template specifications subject to testing.
Buy the machine once.Expand what it can make.
Browse the Box LibraryIt started in a sandwich shop.
Not in a packaging company. Not in an engineering laboratory. Behind the counter of a small Scottish business.
Before developing BUILD YOUR OWN BOX, founder Simon Mowatt owned The Soup and Sandwich Bar in Alva, Scotland. Running a small food business teaches you about hundreds of tiny costs and annoyances that customers never see. Packaging was one of them.
Cardboard was coming in one door while more cardboard packaging was being purchased for the other. The original thought was much simpler than inventing a machine:
“Why can't I just make the size of box I need?”
“I didn't start with a packaging invention. I started with a cupboard full of the wrong boxes.” — Simon Mowatt, Founder
Who could use it?
eBay / Vinted / Etsy sellers
Different products. Different dimensions. Limited storage.
Independent online stores
Create useful shipping sizes without stocking every possible carton.
Small retailers
Produce packaging when required.
Makers & crafters
Packaging for unusual handmade products.
Gift businesses
Adapt packaging to different gifts and combinations.
Small warehouses
Potentially recover useful board from incoming shipments.
Small manufacturers
Repeatable cartons for product ranges.
This isn't the only thing on the workbench.
Other ventures and concepts by Simon Mowatt
TAMREVS
Temporary Anonymous Multi-Factor Retail Session Continuity and Exit Verification System — privacy-focused retail loss-prevention and exit-verification technology.
MatchMyLane
Dating and compatibility platform concept built around structured matching.
AI Legal First Aid
Digital legal-information and initial guidance concept.
Wheelside Trading Co.
Scottish retail, products and visitor services.
Wheelside Adventures
Self-guided location-based audio and interactive experiences.
Glitchlets
Interactive children's story and location-based adventure concept.