Custom Paper Core Tubes

Printed and Branded Cores

Most cores are plain brown, but printing a logo or product code on the inside or outside is surprisingly useful. Branded cores remind the end user whose material they have just finished, which helps reordering. Coloured or printed cores also help warehouse staff tell grades apart at a glance, such as different label adhesives or film gauges that look identical once wound.

For consumer products, a printed core becomes a small branding moment. Gift wrap brands and premium kitchen roll makers print a pattern or message on the core so the customer sees it when the roll runs out. We print the outer ply before winding, so the design wraps continuously around the tube. How one colour sits on the kraft outer ply is shown in our print options on kraft compared guide.

Where Cores Are Used

Label printers and converters order cores in large numbers in small diameters. Packaging film suppliers, tape manufacturers and foil converters use 76 mm cores. Textile mills and upholstery suppliers wind fabric onto long cores, and paper merchants use heavy cores for reels.

Craft and hobby brands use smaller printed cores for ribbon, washi tape and yarn, where the core is visible on the shop shelf. Kitchen roll and toilet roll producers use thin cores at very high volume, and gift wrap makers use printed cores as part of the product presentation.

Florists and gift shops use short printed cores for ribbon rolls on a counter dispenser, and craft retailers sell washi tape and twine on small branded cores that sit in a display tray. In these cases the core is part of the product, so a clean print and neat ends matter as much as strength. Retail rolls that stay on the core are packed as gift wrap tubes wound on cores.

Getting Strength Right

If cores are crushing or going oval, the wall is too thin for the load or the tension, or the cores are being stacked too high in storage. The fix is usually a thicker wall or a denser board grade rather than a bigger diameter. Damp storage also weakens paper cores, so keep them dry and off the floor.

If you are moving from plastic cores to paper, send us the current core dimensions and the roll weight and we will suggest a wall thickness that behaves similarly on your line. A short trial run before a large order is sensible, and we can quote small batches for testing. Ply counts and board grades are explained in our board grades and ply explained guide.

Tolerances and Machine Fit

Automatic winding and unwinding machines are fussy. A core with an inner diameter even half a millimetre too small will not slide onto an expanding shaft, while one that is too loose can slip under torque. For automated lines, tell us the shaft type and the tolerance you need on inner diameter and length, and we will set production to match.

Ends should be cut square and clean. Ragged ends can catch on chucks and leave fibres in clean-room or printing environments. Bevelled ends help cores slide onto shafts more easily and reduce damage to the first few plies when loading. If your line uses drive notches, send a drawing or a sample core with the notch size and position.

Roundness also matters. Cores stored on their side in damp warehouses can flatten slightly over time. Storing cartons upright in a dry area keeps them true until use, especially for thin-walled cores. Cores that double as packaging for a product are on our one piece paper tubes for packaging page.

Measure the Shaft, Then Decide the Wall

Core orders start at the machine. Measure the diameter of the shaft or chuck the core sits on with calipers, because a core that is a millimetre loose slips and one that is a millimetre tight has to be forced on and splits. Then decide the wall thickness from the weight of the wound roll and the tension of the winding; a light roll of tissue sits on a 3 mm wall, a heavy roll of film needs 10 mm or more. Tell us the length, cut to the roll width or long if the roll is slit later, and the tolerance your line needs. For printed cores, the outer ply carries a logo or a grade code, so send a vector file and the free proof shows the outer ply flat. A custom quote comes by email within one working day, minimums are quoted per job so a trial batch is fine, and cores are made in 4–7 working days after approval and delivered free and tracked to UK mainland addresses in cartons or bundles. Rolls that go in the post afterwards travel in our long postal tubes for posting rolls.