How to make a safe from cardboard

These days there are many different services and online stores offering a huge number of different products. A fairly popular safe today, invented back in the 19th century, was created in England and was intended for storing jewelry. However, little has changed now.

Buying even the cheapest and not the most reliable safe will require a lot of expenses, but making a safe with your own hands without spending a penny is quite simple. All you need is a couple of cardboard boxes, a little ingenuity and free time. Such a safe, of course, will not save your jewelry and money, but will serve as decoration and surprise for guests.

In general, there are quite a few ways to make safes. These can be safes with a push-button digital code or a circular digital code. Taking a real model of a safe as a basis, you can easily make a replica of it.

In this article you will learn how to make a safe yourself, what materials are required for this and what are the features of making a homemade safe. Let's begin!

We will make the simplest safe with a digital mechanism.

What materials and tools are needed to make a cardboard safe?

Let's start with the material. To make such a product we will need:

• Corrugated cardboard (such as food boxes);
• Wooden skewers;
• Wooden ice cream sticks,
• Compass,
• Ruler,
• A-4 size paper,
• 2 stationery knives (with a wide and narrow blade),
• Scissors,
• Awl,
• Scotch,
• Hot melt adhesive.

Product manufacturing process

How to make a safe from a box? To begin, draw a sheet of A-4 size paper crosswise and cut it along the marked lines using scissors.

Now take a pencil and wrap one cut piece of paper around it, then secure the resulting tube with tape and remove the pencil.

Take the next cut piece of paper and wrap it over the previous resulting tube.

Do the same with the third piece, wrap it around the second resulting tube.

This way you will get three tubes of the same length, but different widths (reminiscent of a magnifying tube from the 19th-20th century).

Next, take a piece of cardboard and a compass, and draw three identical circles with a diameter of 3 cm.

Cut out the resulting circles using scissors or a utility knife.

Take a drill with a diameter of 8 mm, then drill all three circles in the center.

Using a utility knife, make a cut as in the photo.

After the operation, small pieces of cardboard will remain. Take scissors or a stationery knife and cut out four pieces 1.5 by 1.5 cm, then use glue to glue them to the circles you made earlier (glue two pieces of squares to one of the circles on different sides).

Now take the widest tube made in advance and cut two even pieces 2 cm long from it.

Next, insert them into the central hole of the previously made circles and secure with hot glue.

Insert the thinnest tube into the remaining cardboard circle and secure with hot glue.

We put the remaining medium-thick tube on one end of the thin tube, after which we put the remaining two circles with a thick tube in the center on the middle tube. The result should be as shown in the photo.

The main thing is that all the squares on the circles are turned towards the inside of the mechanism.

Now you need to cut out two identical pieces 10 cm long on both sides.

After that, take a wooden popsicle stick and cut off the round ends.

Place the pre-made parts next to each other, then cut evenly with a knife.

Spread the prepared parts to the length of the cut ice cream stick and insert the stick itself into the cuts.

Next, take two wooden skewers and insert them, as seen in the photo.

Take a sheet of cardboard and cut out a piece 30 cm long and 15 cm wide.

Cut two pieces 12 cm long and 2 cm wide and fix them on the sides of the large piece, but so that 2 cm remains from the edges.

Then make another piece 28 cm long and 7 cm wide and glue it in the center between the side strips.

Make a piece 23 cm long and 7 cm wide and fix it in the center to the previously attached strip.

Cut three rectangles 7 cm long and 4 cm wide and attach them as shown in the photo.

Prepare two parts 7 cm long and 2 cm wide and glue them together as in the photo.

We make another rectangular piece from cardboard 30 cm long and 25 cm wide and attach it as in the photo.

Drill two identical holes as seen in the photo.

Insert the mechanism prepared earlier into the large hole.

Insert the end of a skewer into the corner piece into the shallow hole.

Cut out the same second rectangle and do the same as with the previous one.

Prepare two side rectangles and close the mechanism from the sides.

Using a compass, draw a small circle, then cut it out and use a marker or pencil to draw markings in the form of numbers.

Apply hot glue to the front side of the mechanism, then, having previously cut out the part with sides of 30 by 25 cm and cut out two holes for the tube and skewer, fix it.

Secure the circle with digital markings to a thin tube using hot glue.

Then take a piece of cardboard and cut out a part in the shape of a handle for your safe (the part can be any).

Now mark your safe as shown in the photo.

A DIY cardboard safe requires a code. To do this, rotate the circle with markings counterclockwise until one of the cutouts on the three circles in the mechanism coincides with the wooden skewer.

Now write the number obtained as a result of the intersection with the markings on the circle.

Do the same with the remaining circles, rotating them in opposite directions and rewriting the numbers when they match the cutouts.

Once you have written down all three numbers, this will be your password to the safe.

Now let's move on to the frame. Make a box of any shape, then insert our mechanism into it, as seen in the photo.

Happened! Your homemade safe made from corrugated cardboard is ready! To check its functionality, close the door and turn the handle to the “LOCK” position. The safe is closed. Now turn the circle with markings to position “0” and rotate it in opposite directions while entering the code. Turn the handle to the “OPEN” position and the safe is open!

All that remains is to put a few bills from the joke bank there and give it to your children. It will not be possible to open the safe without a code without deforming the structure.This safe looks quite unusual and will serve as clear evidence of how a real safe works.

How to make a safe out of paper? If you like this homemade product, you can make exactly the same model, but from paper, wood or even metal.