The New Boxmaker: The Mini Grand Pro

25 Mar 2024

Those familiar with the Collection Care Team’s work will likely have heard of, seen, or used our boxes, maybe even our book cradles. For those that don’t, here’s a little background...

Boxes: A Universal Preservation Method – for collection care

The Collection Care Team provide boxes for the protection of precious items for the Library’s special collections. They were initially made by hand, but just over 15 years ago, with the purchase of a box making machine – the Kasemake Model 5 - the Team expanded their offerings to provide flatpack, adhesive free, archival boxes and enclosures that are custom made to fit the contents. They also made some innovative applications along the way: flat packed display cradles, miniature coffins for events, and a tree. 

15 years is a long time for technology. While Windows had evolved from XP to 11, parallel ports and custom control cards switched to USB interfaces, the box maker remained the same. The Kasemake Model 5 worked fine but some of its parts were becoming obsolete and it was delicate to move - even if it survived the move to Crawford House, how long could it last? 

Planning for the next 15 years: The new box maker

John Hodgson, Elisabeth Carr, Alison Bates and Mark Furness visited and invited bids from two leading companies for a new box maker. They selected the latest version of the Kasemake machine: The Kasemake CxD Library and Archive Mini Grand Pro. The new machine is much faster, accurate, versatile, and quieter - a big improvement.

This new machine was made to order to a high specification in South Korea. It was due to be delivered by the end of July 2023. Unfortunately, there was a delay, as the UK Government brought in new legislation over safety features for industrial machinery which necessitated some changes to the box maker. These changes delayed its manufacture and delivery to October. The changes also required some rejigging of the Collection Care Lab at Crawford House to accommodate it. When the box maker finally arrived, its installation required a combined push from Collection Care, Estates, Harrow Green and the Manchester and Cheshire Construction Contractors. All this was coordinated by Stephen Bateson, Joanne Broadhurst, and Mark Furness.

Crawford House is not the easiest building to receive deliveries or move equipment around. Ultimately the machine was moved into the Lab in parts, the largest weighing about 100kg. It was all done by hand using skates and trolleys, and half a dozen people temporarily blocking the stairs to the Library Staff Hub. 

Engineers assembled the machine over the next week, which required a high level of precision and stability. Once up and running, the Team had a further two days to be trained on how to use the new machine and its features.  

Sent to a farm Upstate

The previous machine was not abandoned to recycling or scrap; in fact they were able to find it a new home with Conservation Resources, an Oxfordshire based company now offering custom sized boxes. It has been spotted on the company’s social media, living a second life. A happy ending for the old work horse!