carpeting my box

Someone on the sounddomain forum made a nice tutorial on how to carpet boxes. http://forum.sounddomain.com/forum/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=070780

"Now...overlap the carpet as seen in the picture. Take a straight edge and place on top of the overlapping carpet. Slice the carpet with the razor blade to cut...using the straight edge as a perfect guide. Put a lot of pressure...enough to slice through 2 pieces of carpet. Don't hurt yourself. Now tear off the excess carpet. Unfold the overlaping carpet and remove the bottompiece that's been sliced. You now have a perfectly straight cut carpet. Re-apply adhessive if necessary and place the carpet lines next to each other. The carpet should line up pefectly. Use your fingers to rub on the carpet line. There...you can hardly see the line. As demonstrated, the important idea behind carpeting is to overlap and cut."  from link above

This procedure is what will make or break a carpet job.  It's called double-cutting, a technique used in hanging wallpaper for many years.  Be careful to not get glue onto the finished outside surfaces of the carpet.

Some carpet material that you can get has no apparent front or back.  If that is the type you have, be careful to always use the same side of the roll facing outwards, as a small difference will show.  In this pic, a box I carpeted came out showing a shade difference because I got confused about which side of the carpet was facing out:

(But it does demonstrate double-cutting because you can see the seam.)  The outer sides of the box were applied and wrapped partly onto the front and back sides.  Cut the corners to wrap, then double cut.  Cut out carpet to fit the front (or back) slightly smaller than actual size.  Glue on, and double cut overlap.

You have to plan and be precise with your timing when glueing and double cutting.  You want to leave the area where the double cutting will take place free of glue until you have the carpet secured (an idea is to put a length of masking tape along the proposed seam line, then spray glue the bulk of the material).  Lay the edges down, cut through both layers using a razor blade and straight edge, lift out the bottom cut piece and take away the top cut piece.  The carpet will seam together perfectly.  Now is when you glue the seam.  I use seam sealer glue for that as you can't control spray glue in a tight spot like this.  If you used the masking tape underneath, this is when you peel it off.  You can use most types of clear-drying glue and a small brush for the seam work.

Otherwise, http://www.bcae1.com/carpetenclosure.htm is a good tutorial and shows a method of hiding carpet edges by using double baffles on the sides.

Build the box so that it performs well in the worst case scenario and, in return, it will reward you at all times.