Study of a Bearded and Turbaned Man Carrying a Chest MET DP837789

A wooden box is a container made of

wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...

for storage or as a shipping container. Construction may include several types of wood;

lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, w ...

(timber),

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

, engineered woods, etc. For some purposes, decorative woods are used.

Boxes as shipping containers

Wooden boxes are often used for heavy duty

packaging Packaging is the science, art and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use. Packaging also refers to the process of designing, evaluating, and producing packages. Packaging can be described as a c ...

when * high strength is needed for heavy and difficult loads * long term warehousing may be needed * large size is required * rigidity is required * when stacking strength is critical Boxes and crates are not the same. If the sheathing of the container (plywood, lumber, etc.) can be removed, and a framed structure will remain standing, the container would likely be termed a crate. If removal of the sheathing resulted in there being no way of fastening the lumber around the edges of the container, the container would likely be termed a wooden box. The strength of a wooden box is rated based on the weight it can carry before the cap (top, ends, and sides) is installed. "Skids" or thick bottom runners, are sometimes specified to allow forklift trucks access for lifting. Performance is strongly influenced by the specific design, type of wood, type of fasteners ( nails, etc.), workmanship, etc. Some boxes have handles, ''hand holes'', or ''hand holds''.

Nailed wood box

Cleated box

A cleated box has five or six panel faces with wood strips attached to them. The panels can be made of

, solid or

corrugated fiberboard Corrugated fiberboard or corrugated cardboard is a type of packaging material consisting of a fluted corrugated sheet and one or two flat linerboards. It is made on "flute lamination machines" or "corrugators" and is used for making corrugate ...

, etc. Wooden cleats reinforce the panels.

Wirebound box

Very thin lumber is used for a wirebound box. Wires are stapled or stitched to the girth and to wood cleats. These are sometimes used for

produce Produce is a generalized term for many farm-produced crops, including fruits and vegetables ( grains, oats, etc. are also sometimes considered ''produce''). More specifically, the term ''produce'' often implies that the products are fres ...

and for heavy loose items for military or export use. These are lighter than wood boxes or crates. They have excellent tensile strength to contain items but not much stacking strength.

Skid box

A skid box is a wood,

, or metal box attached to a heavy duty

pallet A pallet (also called a skid) is a flat transport structure, which supports goods in a stable fashion while being lifted by a forklift, a pallet jack, a front loader, a jacking device, or an erect crane. A pallet is the structural founda ...

or platform on a skid (parallel wood runners)

Other wooden boxes

Decorative boxes

Chest

ASTM standards

ASTM ASTM International, formerly known as American Society for Testing and Materials, is an international standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems, an ...

standards: * D6179 Standard Test Methods for Rough Handling of Unitized Loads and Large Shipping Cases and Crates * D6199 Standard Practice for Quality of Wood Members of Containers and Pallets * D6251 Standard Specification for Wood-Cleated Panelboard Shipping Boxes * D6253 Practice for Treatment and/or marking of Wood Packaging Materials * D6254 Standard Specification for Wirebound Pallet-Type Wood Boxes * D6256 Standard Specification for Wood-Cleated Shipping Boxes and Skidded, Load-Bearing Bases * D6573 Standard Specification for General Purpose Wirebound Shipping Boxes * D6880-05 Standard Specification for wooden boxes