Favorite Deck Box Design

Here’s another little deck box I made.

I like the design of this deck box better than the sliding top or the suction fit since this design doesn’t squeak or wobble.

I have two smaller pins on the top and bottom for extra stability. When closed this box feels like one solid piece of wood.

The latch is a metal nail that I’ve bent and driven into the lid. It fits into a ~1 cm long metal tube hidden in the side of the box.

You can adjust how tight you want the latch to hold by bending the nail slightly with pliers. My latch is set tight enough to never open accidently or even when vigorously shaken.

I prefer wood deck boxes to metal ones because wood is more rigid and lighter, but fresh cut wood does produce acid. To deal with this it is important to seal the inside of the box with 3 layers of shellac or polyurethane.

No need to worry about the protective layer breaking down, by the time that happens (~15 years) the wood will have dissipated all of its acid.

See this technical document about wood and acid with a list of low acid emitting woods.

The sides and top are 1/8^th inch thick Walnut. The bottom panel is actually 1/16^th inch thick to reduce the thickness even more.

The box is only 3.7cm thick so it can easily fit in my pocket. It holds 75 sealed perfect fits sleeved cards.

If you decide to paint your box note that it takes three weeks for acrylic (aka latex) paint to fully dry. Even though it feels dry, the lid will make sticky tacky sounds and may stick to the bottom. This will all go away in three weeks once the paint is fully dry. 

Sealing Inner Sleeves

I noticed that a few people were using a $25 Impulse Sealer to seal their card sleeves.

Sealing card sleeves is cool, but I think there are issues with judges not allowing them in tournaments since the top seals could appear marked.

If you seal your inner sleeves this is not a problem, since an outer sleeve will obscure the seal.

I tried sealing KMC perfect fits and it works great! (Sealing does not work with Ultra-Pro inner sleeves)

Perfect seal. Nothing is gonna damage that Gerrard’s Wisdom now!

So why bother sealing inner sleeves?

Well, it provides more protection than conventional double sleeving since it’s a complete seal, but what I really like about it is that I can just play with KMC perfect fits by themselves in a causal environment.

I suspect that they are actually less likely to tear or split than normal un-sealed single sleeves since the card itself supports the plastic corners. I’ve been doing this for months and haven’t had a single split.

Of course they keep out more dirt and moisture than an un-sealed single sleeve. 

They are obviously much cheaper than normal single sleeves. 

For casual play I really like the thinner plastic. When I play causally with friends I want the closest experience possible to playing with just bare cards. I like that I can see the card backs and not some ugly uniform plastic color. I like that the cards feel like cards and not thick plastic.

The thickness of your decks is of course massively reduced. A 75 card deck can easily fit in my pocket when using only sealed KMC Perfect Fit sleeves.

To make a seal I recommend you take off the little cloth thing. Put the card in a small book to push out all the air and hold it flat. Then hold the sleeve at a 90 degree angle to the sealer. Turn the sealer to the lowest possible setting and push down.

No need to worry about the sealer damaging the cards either. It is not heat operated, but rather works by sending an electrical impulse through the plastic. If you accidentally hit the card it won’t heat the card since the card will break the circuit. I’ve sealed a lot of my expensive beta cards this way. They are perfectly fine. 

Just to reiterate, the impulse sealer will not work with ultra-pro inner sleeves. For some reason Ultra-Pro plastic just disintegrates instead of sealing. 

Also, there will be little air pockets at first, but after a few days the extra air will defuse through the plastic and they will be nice and flat.