How We Ship the Tunnel Tray Without Foam or Fuss

Cardboard, Lasers, and Tunnel Trays: A Packaging Saga

Shipping the Tunnel Tray should be simple. It is a sturdy aluminum assembly built to handle real use, not something that needs to be wrapped like heirloom glassware. Yet the moment you try to send one across the country, the tray’s length, weight, and odd geometry conspire to remind you that physics has a sense of humor. Foam inserts would need costly customization. Off-the-shelf solutions rarely match the dimensions. Additionally, sending a pile of plastic into the world only to soften the ride for a single shipment never sits well with us.

So we did the natural thing: we walked around the shop, stared at our stack of cardboard leftovers, looked at the laser cutter sitting there waiting for something interesting to do, and thought, yes, that will work.

The Problem: Protecting the Tunnel Tray

The Tunnel Tray is not fragile, but that does not mean shipping should be careless. The tray spans a long aluminum body, a bracket shelf (also aluminum), and a locking mechanism that deserves a measure of protection. These pieces create a shape that resists simple solutions. Any packaging that pads one area tends to overcompensate everywhere else, which leads to bulk, waste, or both.

We needed something that held the tray steady without turning the box into a foam-filled cavern. We also wanted to avoid introducing more plastic into a process that already moves a lot of material across the country. The answer had to come from what we already had.

The Solution: Laser-Cut, Recycled, Cardboard Armor

Stacks of shipping cardboard are constant companions in our shop. They arrive with aluminum sheets, linger near workbenches, and accumulate until someone finally remembers to break them down. Pair that with a laser cutter that has never met a problem it didn’t think it could solve, and the path forward became obvious.

We measured the critical dimensions of the Tunnel Tray, sketched several possible cuts, and refined a layout that uses six custom sleeves per side. Each sleeve nests around a specific section, hugging the contours closely enough to stop rattling without adding unnecessary mass. It feels a bit like tailoring a jacket for something built from metal rather than fabric.

Laser-cut cardboard laid out on cardboard scrap, showing sleve packaging for each side the Rivian Tunnel Tray.

Built In-House Because That’s How We Work

Laser-cut packaging is not a novelty in our shop. We already use the cutter for Fidlock Snap Pull guards, Strap Kit packaging, and the backing boards that keep smaller components from jostling in transit. Making these systems ourselves keeps things consistent. It also removes the delay of waiting for an outside supplier to decide whether our odd little project fits into their production schedule.
Packaging, for us, behaves like another build. It needs to function, repeat cleanly, and solve the problem with the tools on hand. Once we treated it that way, the process clicked into place.

Packaging as a Playground

Working by hand means nothing stays fixed for long. If a solution feels bulky, wasteful, confusing, or simply inelegant, it gets revised. We treat packaging the same way we treat our product prototypes: sketch, test, adjust, and repeat until the thing behaves.

That path is how we ended up with cardboard shapes that look strange on the table and entirely sensible once they lock around the Tunnel Tray. They cradle each section, stay put, and do it without extra material. It is not flashy, but it works with a degree of quiet satisfaction that is familiar to anyone who has ever solved a problem with whatever happened to be nearby.

What’s Next: Pulp Experiments and Molded Forms

Cardboard sleeves were only the beginning. We also started collecting the shop’s shredded paper and miscut scraps to test small-batch pulp molds. It is the kind of experiment that sits somewhere between engineering and mild improvisation, but it gives us a way to turn waste into something useful.

The idea is simple: molded corner blocks and supports shaped specifically for our products, made entirely from material we already have. The early results are a mix of promising shapes and a few creations that look like the result of an ant colony attempting industrial design. Each attempt moves us a little closer to packaging that uses fewer new resources, and that is reason enough to keep going.

Early prototypes of molded pulp packaging made from recycled shop scrap.

Want More Shop Experiments?

If you want to see how we think about materials, waste, and the odd problems that appear in a small shop, take a look at this post about keeping our footprint small.
And if you have ideas for packaging, materials, or ways to put shop scraps to work, we are always curious what the community is tinkering with.