Behind the Scenes: How WestonBoxes Are Actually Made

Hi all,

I've written a lot of these posts about what to put in the boxes. This one's about where they come from, because I'm in the unusual position of being both a crafter who uses them and someone who's worked for S.B.Weston at their factory since 1979 — and I still think the making of them is the most interesting bit.

A bit of history first

S.B.Weston Ltd was started in 1948 by Selwyn Weston, in Teddington in south west London. He was an engineer, and invented a hand-operated pump dispenser used to correctly dose medicine for cattle and sheep. ICI bought into it and the company did very well. These days versions of hand operated pumps derived from Selwyns' design are on bathroom shelves all over the world.

In the seventies the company moved out to Platts Eyot — a little island on the Thames near Hampton, which is as lovely and as impractical as it sounds. And in 2002 we moved into our own factory in Sunbury-on-Thames, which is where we are now.

It's still family run. Reid Weston and Chris Dodman are the third generation management, and they're both in the building most days.

Where the boxes came in

For most of its life the company was purely a trade moulder — making components to other people's designs. The WestonBoxes range came along in the nineties, when we decided to make a small box of our own for printers to pack business cards in.

That was the whole idea. One box, for the print trade. And then the crafters found it, and then the general public and so here we all are. We've made over eighty million boxes since. I don't think anyone in 1990 would have believed that.

So how does a box actually get made?

It starts with a tool. A mould tool is a great lump of hardened steel, machined to an extraordinary tolerance, in two halves that close together with the shape of the box in the gap between them. They are enormously expensive and they take months to build. This is why we don't just knock out a new size every time someone suggests one — each new box is a serious financial commitment that has to be undertaken way before a single product is manufactured and sold.

Then the plastic goes in. Polypropylene arrives as small granules. They're melted and injected into the closed tool at high pressure, held while they cool and set. Then the tool opens and the box drops out. The whole cycle is a matter of seconds. Watching it never gets old.

Then it's checked. Every moulding gets checked — for clarity, for flash on the edges, for warp, for any contamination in the material. This is the bit I care about most as a crafter, because it's where the difference between a good box and a poor one is decided.

Why polypropylene?

Polypropylene is chosen deliberately because it's acid-free and chemically inert, so it gives your papers maximum protection against yellowing and degradation. It doesn't absorb moisture. It's tough without being brittle — it flexes rather than cracking. And it's recyclable. Its an ideal material for making storage boxes from.

It's also why the same box that holds my cross stitch threads is bought by dental labs and print rooms. Inert is inert.

What "made in Britain" actually means here

You'll see a lot of things sold as British that are designed here and made a long way away. Ours aren't. Our polypropylene storage boxes are designed, moulded and quality-checked at our factory in Sunbury-on-Thames. Made in Britain — not just branded there. 

The bit I like best

When somebody writes in to say a box arrived damaged, or that a colour looked different to the picture, that message goes to people who can walk out of the office and onto the factory floor and look at the machine that made it. There's no head office three countries away. It's Reid, Chris, me, and a very small number of other people who've mostly been here a very long time.

If you ever want to know something specific about how one of them is made or what's in the material, just email contact@westonboxes.com. Somebody who actually knows will answer you.

You can see the whole range of craft storage boxes on the site — and now you know what went into every one of them.

Bye for now!

Sandra.