CardBoard Six Pack Carrier

I love drinking beers and sharing this sin with my friends. As I really enjoy bringing new local beers to my friends and family, I needed a carrier.

I love cardboard as one of the most versatile and easy-to-work material so I decided to use old cardboard I had at my place to shape a dedicated 6 pack carrier with some extra functionalities. Upcycling is Life!

I guess that those kind of thing can be found in some specialized shops but... well, let's do it by ourselves.

What you will need to make your own:

- A sheet of cardboard, simple corrugated, around 3 mm thick, in good condition (not damaged nor polluted nor bended or folded) size should be more than 80 x 56 cm.

- a laser cutting machine

- An utility knife (optional),

- A printer (optional);

- Some spray glue (optional), glue stick or pins,

- a Ruler

- eventually some wood glue (optional)

- Cutting mat (optional)

In this Instructable we will be using sharp and cutting tools so please take care to handle those tools with appropriate behaviour and eventually wear some personal protective equipment, here mainly gloves. If you decided to use glue, take care of using it in a well ventilated area.

This project can be seen as an improvement of the Make a cardboard toolbox I'tbles

If you like this project, please vote!

Designing the carrier was not simple and some tricky parts had to be taken into account. After several trials and errors (pics present you the path from first sketch to actual CAD), I ended with a design that completely suited my needs.

I had 2 major objectives:

- making it as simple as possible, ==> checked

- avoiding any use of glue ==> failed (even if I have some ideas to achieve this one)

To achieve those goals I used the principles of Origami and Fusion360 (not as easy as I thought to use it. It was necessary for me to find a tutorial despite my, let's say, standard knowledge of CAD software...). The Most challenging part was to make the folded cardboard strong enough to carry 6 beers incl big glass bottled ones.

Before starting to do anything, please dl the available PDF (A0 sized) to have the plans and start building the carrier.

Once you will have the folio we will be able to start

I went to my local FabLab to cut my carrier using a laser cutting machine.

Shape the pdf file using your favourite vector drawing software to your machine! It is really important as results may vary a lot!

I am used to it as I have made lots of prototypes for my ETSY shop. The cutting went pretty well and I ended with a very nice laser cut cardboard beer carrier.

Unfortunately I forgot my camera to document the cutting but you can see the result ;-)

Yes, I already set it ready for the final step ;-)

If you don't have access to a laser cutting machine or if you prefer doing it by hand, let's go!

First print the pattern. If your printer cannot print it as once, trim them down to cut the shape outlines and just taped the corresponding pieces back together to make the larger shapes whole again (just how I did it).

I didn't really take care of the corrugation direction in my project and it seems to work quite well anyway so I suppose that it did not really matter. Please share your comment about that specific point if you find out that corrugation direction is important.

One can use a spray glue (or glue stick) to stick the paper templates to the cardboard.

It is ok even if I prefer to pin it and/or report the shape using the utility knife and then cut it. One can also use a pencil to report the shape taking care not to damage the cardboard.

Then use your utility knife, with the appropriate care, to cut the general shape of the carrier. Take care to protect your table or whatever you are cutting on with a cutting mat or a sacrificial piece of cardboard.

Hint from the field when cutting cardboard:

I really engage you to cut your cardboard in two steps. With your utility knife and ruler, first cut along your line without applying to much pressure. Then make a second run to finish the cut. It will ease the cutting and will decrease the chance of false cuttings.

Once you have the cut cardboard, it is time to fold it.

Mark the folding lines with whatever round-ended tool you could have or (preferred) a ruler.

Then start folding. To let you understand how to fold it, please see the provided PDF.

Don't forget to glue the dedicated part as it will look your carrier. I use masking tape to maintain the parts while the glue is curing.

Final step is the most enjoyable one.

Put your local beers into your carrier and run to your friends house to spend good time together...

Enjoy your drink (with moderation) ;-)

Let's share your making with me.

I have an extra challenge that I couldn't manage to do ==> Make it A4 or at least A3 compatible. I mean being able to build the carrier from A4/A3 sheets of cardboard (i.e. from a standard moving box as example)

Vote for this project if you liked this!

NB: If walking the streets with bottles is forbidden in your country, you just have to make higher side walls ;-)