A shipping tube, mailing tube, or cardboard tube is a

shipping container A shipping container is a container with strength suitable to withstand shipment, storage, and handling. Shipping containers range from large reusable steel boxes used for intermodal shipments to the ubiquitous corrugated box design, corrugated b ...

used to ship long items. It is usually a long package with a narrow cross-section: square, triangle, or round.

History

Composite paper tubes started being used for shipping at the beginning of the 20th century. A machine for making convolute composite cans, where sheets of straw paper or board are wound perpendicular to the tube, was introduced in 1886 by the W. C. Richie Company. In 1904 the Monroe Binder Board Company introduced the first large cylindrical juteboard shipping containers for packaging cheese, and convolute drums wound from

kraft paper Kraft paper or kraft is paper or paperboard (cardboard) produced from chemical pulp produced in the kraft process. Sack kraft paper (or just sack paper) is a porous kraft paper with high elasticity and high tear resistance, designed for packa ...

saw widespread use in WWII. Several methods for making spiral-wound composite cans, which could be made from continuous strips of paper, were introduced between 1900 and 1910, and provided a quicker and cheaper method of manufacturing small tubes.

Light duty

Rolls of paper, rolled artwork, curtain rods, posters, etc are often shipped in tubes. Many tubes are made of layers of

paperboard Paperboard is a thick paper-based material. While there is no rigid differentiation between paper and paperboard, paperboard is generally thicker (usually over 0.30 mm, 0.012 in, or 12 Inch#Equivalents, points) than paper and has certain superior ...

of appropriate strength, and are referred to as composite cans. The open ends may have plastic caps or plugs. Pressure sensitive tape can seal tubes; some paper tubes have two sections which slide to telescope closed.

Corrugated fiberboard Corrugated fiberboard, corrugated cardboard, or corrugated 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 maki ...

is also used for shipping tubes. Five panel folders and similar designs are common. Triangular folders are also used.

Heavy duty

Longer and heavier tubes are usually made of stronger grades of corrugated board, sometimes double wall. Five panel folders can be used for heavier duty applications. Some long boxes have separate recessed pieces of corrugated stapled inside the ends. Wood ends are also used when needed.

References

Containers Tubing (material) Paperboard {{tool-stub

History

Light duty

Heavy duty

Further reading

References