A card game box design that creates boxes very similar to the deck boxes that cards are usually purchased with. Instead of making heavy use of the Z axis like most 3D prints, it is designed to be glued and folded after printing.

Demo and assembly at https://youtu.be/s4gXLKx4FPg

This tries to emulate the design of traditional cardboard flatpack deck boxes as much as possible.

There are several types of boxes and designs. The smaller boxes fit within the largest box type to form a 2-player game kit that can hold 2 standard deck boxes and additional small accessories.

Tools

• Glue. Must bond the plastic you're printing with, obviously. I recommend superglue (aka, "The Kragle").
• Also, something to hold the box in place while the glue is drying/curing. I use a combination of painter's tape and long hemostats, but both are optional.

Printing

All designs expect a 0.20mm layer height.
All models should already be oriented correctly, so that the correct side is lying on the print bed.

Box Variations

There are 3 different box types, with different design options.

• CardBox
  • A box to hold a deck of cards.
  • Plain
    • A plain design.
  • HexWindowOrnate
    • The design has a honeycomb window cut out of the sheet, as well as a raised embossed frame for a label.
• DoubleDeckSheet
  • A box that holds two CardBox and one Inner (accessories) box
  • Std
    • The front tab cutout is similar to the deck box.
  • WideTabAccess
    • The front tab cutout is wide and symmetrical.
• DoubleDeckSheetInner
  • A small box that holds a collection of small game accessories.
  • Plain
    • The design is similar to a rescaled version of the CardBox.
  • Topless
    • The design does not have top features.

For a full set, print 2 deck boxes, one double box, and one inner box. The card boxes should match the size of a commercial MTG card box (which I assume is a standardized size that works with other collectible cards). This means the 3D printed card boxes can replace cardboard ones. And also, cardboard boxes can fit in the double boxes.

Filament

Tested with PLA and PETG. Both work fine. In theory, you'd want the most ductile plastic for the living hinges to last the most bending cycles. So PETG should be preferred over PLA, and Nylon should be preferred over PETG. But in practice, PLA has worked fine for me, and I haven't had a living hinge break on me yet, so it's durable enough to be used for a while. This observation also applies to silk filaments. Also, I've never printed with Nylon, that's just "in theory" ramblings.

Release

When the print is finished, make sure that the printed plastic is cooler than its glass transition temperature. This is the temperature at which the material is no longer molten, but will take on permanent physical changes if deformed. If the plastic is too hot when peeled off the bed, the sheet can have a curl from peeling it permanently in its structure. You can let it cool by waiting, maybe with a fan - or if it's on a bedsheet, lift the sheet and fan it for a short while.

Assembly

The printed sheet is designed to bend one way, where the side facing the bed bends inward (an origami mountain fold).
Instructions may not be the most clearly written, but I'm assuming too much detail isn't needed for this (essentially, glue the tab, and fold everything else 90 degrees). See project video for details.

For any given box type:

1. There should be one tab that's thinner than the rest. Where it transitions to the thicker section, fold it at a 90-degree angle as close as possible to the transition point where it thickens.
2. Curl in the other folding edges of the walls by around 90 degress, so the tab wraps around to the other side.
3. Apply glue to the thin tab on the top. Try to apply a thin application, so that as much of the tab will be coated with glue, but there will be no squeezeout when pushed against the surface we're gluing it to.
4. Push the glue to the surface, aligning the walls. Try to line up the glued tab so that its connected wall is barely raised against the edge of the other wall it's glued to.
5. Hold the glued tab in place. Weak tape, and long clamps are useful here.
6. Wait for glue to dry.
7. Assemble the bottom. The bottom is modified from a traditional flatpack design to be more secure from accidentally slipping out; this also means it will be a little tougher to assemble. Use force as needed.
8. (If the box isn't topless,) Assemble the top, and reopen to test.
9. Place in cards, or whatever goes in that box.

Fill Patterns And Surface Features

When printing the top of the sheet, which is the part of the box that's visible from the outside, different fill patterns can be applied in the slicer. For patterns that create ringed patterns, such as Concentric, Archimedean Chord, and Octagram Spiral, their surface finish can create streaking highlight effects when printed in silk filament.

Holographic transfer sheets can kind of be used. The surface finish for the outside of the box isn't on the bed, so the hologram will be transferred to the inside.

• Transparent filament can be used to look through to the inside, but the effect will be muted because of how imperfect looking through transparent filament is.
• The print can be assembled inside-out, but this can cause the walls to bow outwards, and the hinges to fatigue faster.
• The print can be printed upside down, but then the thin flap needs a thin layer of support, which doesn't work well in practice. Also, it would work best if the slicer didn't detect bridge paths, but I haven't found a way to completely disable that on Prusa slicer.

Safety Warnings

Be careful if you use super glue, eye safety, accidental adhesion, and whatnot.

Make 100% sure adhesives are dry before putting cards into the boxes.

If you have a print that has stubborn adhesion to the bed, be careful picking up corners with your fingernail. It's rare, but not impossible for the sharp-and-thin feature to slip into the nail bed.

Source files

Source Blender files are included. The main file is CardBoxSheet_*.blend, which is a non-specific box, but most closely resembles the card deck box. The "Params" object has Custom Properties that can be modified, which drive shapekey changes. Although the mesh (mainly for the tabs) gets corrupted if the box is too small.

The parameters don't have logical zero defaults. I was trying to make the zero-ed parameters the size of the deck box, but in practice, the exact measurements come out a little different when assembled. So I printed a default box, and then modified the parameters based on how different the values were from the target inner box dimensions I wanted. A very trial-and-error process. After test prints were verified that the dimensions were dialed in, a duplicate of the Blender object was made, the modifiers and shapekeys were applied (destructive process), and extra features were modeled in. This was done for each box type. Not elegant, but it got me results.