If you are looking for large sheets of cardboard try Costco
they have tons for the taking
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That is one of the wonderful things about my work. We often get shipments of equipment in and our warehouse guy has to cart them around the building to dispose of them. I went to him the other day and asked if I could just take the larger boxes for laser cutting and he was happy to see them go!
I would have never thought of Costco! I bet there are a ton of big box stores that would be willing to set stuff aside if you ask nicely
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I bet places that sell (and install) appliances would have tons!
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Appliance cardboard can be really seriously strong stuff. If you could work out how to score partway through for bending you could build cool structures. (Hmm, now is when I try to convince myself to go for that passthrough again.)
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Someone else posted that you want to cut dotted lines vs scoring so that you don’t delaminate the cardboard. I think the professionally made cardboard is crushed where it needs to be folded, but I’m not sure.
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Yeah, the professional way is die-cutting and die-mashing (the 11-year-old was an alpha tester for the Pinbox 3000, q.v., so I got to learn a fair amount about building things out of bent corrugated). But I’m not sure about the dotted lines vs scoring, mostly because cutting dotted lines is going to weaken the outside of the bend. Maybe a dotted score?
I have at least one project planned where I’ll be able to explore this in agonising depth.
I’m always really bad about letting cardboard pile up and never taking it to recycling—I’ve quite literally had a cardboard Mt. Everest in my garage on more than one occasion.
Once my Glowforge finally comes, everyone’s gonna be like, “Wow, this thing you made me is pretty cool and all, but why’s it say [Cinnamon Toast Crunch/Pizza Hut/Amazon/etc.] all over it?”
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better watch the Pizza Hut. I suspect the oils in the cardboard if there are any will not make a happy lasering experience.
I used to have a small room that I would fill with boxes before dealing with it.
So other than food oils, anyone know any other gotchas like some of the rubber cements or other adhesives?
Vinyl stickers?
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