Designing My Own Card Game Boxes

I recently got a laser machine and in my search of projects to make I became obsessed with boxes for card games but I couldn't find any that were either the exact measurements I needed or were not paid.

I decided to make one from scratch and now I'm sharing the process in case someone finds it useful.

I used many designs I found on the internet to help me understand the components needed for the box. I will share them at the end of this.

For the box design:

1. A graphic design program such as Inkscape, Affinity Designer or Adobe Illustrator. I'm using Affinity Designer.
2. The measurements of the card game of your choosing.

For the box making

1. The material I used and for the purpose of this tutorial is 3mm MDF.
2. Laser cutter.
3. Glue (white or wood glue)

1. Choose the game you want to make a box for. (I'm focusing on card games but I'm sure the process could be adapted to many types of games.)
2. Decide which type of box you want, the possibilities are endless:
3. A shallow box that has space for two piles of cards
4. A deeper box for just one pile of cards
5. A vertical box
6. A horizontal box
7. A box with a hinge lid
8. A box with a removable lid
9. Measure your cards according to the type of box you want.

Example: I have an old box that contains two decks of cards. I want to keep them in the same box so I decided to make a shallow box with space for two piles of cards and I want a hinged lid.

1. I take the measurements of one deck of cards, the height, the width and the depth.
2. In my case the deck is: 89mm x 58mm x 18mm
3. Since I want to make a shallow box for two decks I know I need to double the width.
4. I need to add a spacer between both decks using the thickness of the material I'm using (3mm, in my case)
5. The final measurements of the box is 92mm of height, 123mm of width and 22mm of depth.

As mentioned above I'm using Affinity Designer because is the software in which I feel most comfortable with.

Any design software should work.

Taking into account the material the type of box I'm making is a box with finger joints.

1. Create the base of the box. A rectangle of 92 x 123mm. Fig1
2. Add finger joints. I chose to put 4 finger joints in the long side and 3 joints in the short side. They should be the thickness fo the material (3mm). Fig2
3. Create the sides. Rectangle of 22 x 92mm.
4. Add finger joints (that coincide with the joints from the base) and the hinge for the lid. Fig3
5. Create the front and the back. 2 rectangles of 22 x 123mm.
6. Add finger joints (that coincide with the joints of the base and with the ones from the sides) and in the case of the front add a space for the tab of the lid to fit. Fig4
7. Create the lid. A rectangle the same size as the base.
8. Add joints that fit in the hinge mechanism and a tab for opening the box. Fig 5
9. Add joints to the middle of the base of the box to put a spacer between the two card decks.
10. Create spacer (rectangle of 86 x 17mm) with it's respective joints that fit in the base. Fig 6

This step consist in adding the design you want to the lid of the box.

You can design your own or you can find tons of vectors online.

In my case I added the four suits of the deck. (which I downloaded from: https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/76941830-playing-card-icon-symbol-illustration)

When I was making a box for UNO I added the logo. (found here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNO_Logo.svg)

Of course you could do something really decorative and elaborate but I prefer the simplicity.

Now you can export your design for using with the laser cutting software. I export it as an SVG.

Before that I arrange the design in affinity designer so I don't waste a lot of material when cutting with the laser. Fig1

The settings I used in my laser cutter (sculpfun s30 - 20watts):

Cutting: 150mm/m - 100% - 1 pass

Engraving: 6000mm/m - 100% - 1 pass

After cutting I test fit the pieces and then I started gluing the pieces together.

The order I followed for gluing the box was:

Gluing the left side to the base --> gluing the back to the base and the left side --> gluing the front to the base and left side --> gluing the spacer to the base --> adding the lid to the hinge of the left side (WITHOUT GLUE) --> gluing the right side to the base, the front and back, inserting the lid to the hinge.

Now you can make boxes in whichever size you need!

These are some of the resources I used to inform myself and that helped me understand how a box needs to be made.

You can find many designs in these pages (both free and paid)

1. https://cuttle.xyz/ (Free and paid designs. You can edit the design before downloading but you need an account in order to download any design)
2. https://www.thingiverse.com/ (Free. Tons of user generated designs although mostly for 3d printing. No account necessary for downloading designs)
3. https://www.stanser.com/vectores/ (Free. tons of designs for laser and CNC router. The page is Mexican so I don't know if it works everywhere. No account necessary)

If you prefer templates for cardboard boxes (you can choose your measurements before downloading your template):

1. https://easypackmaker.com/chooser (Free. A lot of box templates. Login required)
2. https://dielines.boxshot.com/ (Free. Many box templates. Login required)
3. https://www.templatemaker.nl/en/ (Free. Many types of different shapes, including some boxes. No login required)

These are some pages for finding vector for decorating your boxes:

1. https://www.magnific.com/
2. https://www.vecteezy.com/
3. https://publicdomainvectors.org/