48 x 40 x 24 in gaylord boxes

Short boxes exist because weight and height do not get along. A 48 x 40 x 36 filled to the brim with small cast parts could weigh more than a floor or lift truck wants to carry. Cut 12 inches off the height and the same footprint becomes a box that fills up with the weight you can actually move.

You find it under castings, fasteners, bar stock offcuts, scrap, ceramic and anything where a cubic foot weighs a lot. Plants in Norristown and Conshohocken, the steel towns of Coatesville and the machine shops along the Schuylkill are the sort of places it moves. It is also the usual choice when the box will ride on a conveyor or sit at a bench, because a worker can reach all the way to the bottom.

Its capacity per cubic foot is high. Divide one maker's 1,500 lb rating by 26.7 cubic feet and you get about 56 lb per cubic foot, well above the 37.5 lb per cubic foot of the 36 inch box. That is the number to remember: short boxes carry denser loads.

For the 48 x 40 x 24 in box, the deck of a 48 x 40 pallet is 1,920 square inches. The footprint covers 1,920, or 100 percent of it. Weigh what you plan to put in, then see where you land against the 1,500 lb rating (triple wall, one maker).

Stay in the first three rows for a used box. A box below Grade A has already given up some of its rating.

Growers, plants and carriers each count in different units, so here is 48 x 40 x 24 in in the ones they use. A bushel is 1.2445 cubic feet, a cubic yard is 27, a US gallon is 0.1337 and a liter is 0.0353. Fill level matters: a box filled to 20 of its 24 inches holds 22.2 cubic feet, because the top four inches are for flaps and settling.

Ask for this size with a full flap bottom if the load is dense, since heavy goods sit right on the base. Say the weight of a full box, and we will tell you which wall count to pick. A used Grade A short box is a good buy when it is dry, because dense loads do not push on the walls the way flowing ones do.

The danger with a short box is overfilling it. A box with room left on top invites a worker to heap more in. Stay under the rating, with margin, even when the box looks like it could take more.