Fixing foxed box and card edges

[Roar]

Anyone who collects boxed or carded action figures know that dings and scrapes happen over the span of a sealed or open toy's lifetime. Sometimes the edges of boxes at the lip that goes inside the box to hold it closed the "L" tab gets frayed at the end, and sometimes in cards, due to pressure of upright display or simple decay, the edges either blunted or square get frayed and separate. sometimes once frays start, they continue over time until they could possibly reach a bubble or "window" and of course, there is the issue of cracking on the surface of the box or card which has the coloration and artwork represented. It's not the worst thing, but those little white spider webbing lines on your vintage packaging really do spoil the look of your collectible's packaging for value or just display.

There's an easy cheap fix for that, it works extremely well, and you'll only need two things to do the repair.

A semi-solid glue stick and a small paintbrush

There are several glue sticks on the market, but I would highly advise getting a "school" type of glue stick that is washable. 3-M makes a permanent glue stick for preserving photographs and the like, but for this kind of work, you need an adhesive that is forgiving in case some glue strays into places you don't want it to, especially considering the value of the items you may be repairing.

Cra-Z-Art makes a great glue stick (it's the brand I use) and so does Elmer's. The Elmer's washable school glue stick is purple in color, but it dries clear. I would advise though, you buy a glue stick that is white in color like the Cra-Z-Art one.

Your paintbrush bristles can be natural or synthetic, like nylon, but I would advise using a white nylon brush as it is less likely to shed into your repair and the hairs are also stiffer, so you can better control the spreading of your adhesive.

The first thing you should do is drag your finger gently across the separated ends of the cardboard you are repairing to see how deep the separation is and to judge how many layers you are going to treat. You do not have to use a lot of glue to seal one layer of paper onto the other, a very light once over coat will do it, you do not want to "cake" on the glue or load it thickly onto each layer of paper, if you do, you will not have a uniform thickness to match other areas of undamaged box or card.

Brush across the top of your glue stick and get enough on the bristles of your brush to paint a light coat onto your first layer of frayed paper, taking care to make sure that you get deep down into the fray to where it stops on the "inside" of the fray. Continue that action until each layer is coated back to front, back to front until you have each layer in between the box back and front (Or card back and front) coated with glue.

After that, take a clean paper towel or a white piece of paper folded, something sturdy that will reduce friction between your fingers and the surfaces you're gluing, and pinch them together, applying light pressure to make the bonds of the paper layers seal. Hold the corner or side you are repairing for a moment and then gently release the light pressure.

The glue bonding the layers together should hold together without being pressed between anything.

After you are satisfied that the corners are going to stay glued together, if any adhesive has squeezed out of the ends of your repair, gently wipe the edge of the card or box section with your dry paper towel and place the area that you repaired on a flat, dry surface to cure/won't stick to the surface it is resting on.

Also:

Before it dries, if you find there is a little glue on your box or card that accidentally got onto an area that you don't want it on, take a clean white paper towel, put a sparing amount of warm water on it, and then squeeze out all of the water from it you possibly can. You want the paper towel to just be barely damp, and then gently rub it over the area that the glue got on. Since the glue stick is washable, the adhesive will come off easily.

Have a dry paper towel at the ready to lightly pat any area that you had to remove glue from.

Even if you miss stray glue and it dries, no worries, the warm water method will remove dried washable glue as well, you just have to be more careful and make sure you are not hydrating your paper areas.

When done, you'll have a nice solid corner on your box or card that is as rigid and the same thickness as the rest of your packaging.


I have mint on card ThunderCats figures that I have done this to the edges of, the repair looks terrific, and you can't tell that the corners were ever trying to separate. This method also works splendidly with minor bubble lifting and repairing tears on boxes, especially if the tear is clean with no artwork or coloring missing. (reinforce the tears on the inside of the box with a sturdy clear tape when the glue is dried) I did that with a MMPR Dragonzord box with a fairly good-sized corner tear on the front and it looks pretty good (not perfect, of course) for as badly damaged as it was.

You might think that this is not good to do, and that original packaging should be preserved, warts and all, but I am not above doing it because I look at this type of repair from a preservation point of view. The cardboard layers that are frayed were glued together during original manufacturing, and why allow damage to progress when you can halt it before even worse degradation to condition is done?

It's all up to your personal preference of course.

The washable glue is also excellent for re-gluing labels on your Transformers toys or other toy lines if the original adhesive has failed. The glue in the washable glue stick does not react with the plastics of the toy and labels can be removed with no damage to the toy if necessary.

[Time Traveller]

Excellent and comprehensive post! Gonna sticky it to the top of the section