Cardboard creations?

We need a seal around the hatch to our basement. We put in "flat caulking" etc, made for this type of application, but it keeps self-destructing. I bought rubber matting (by the yard from HD) and thought that would work. The piece is long enough but not wide enough. That doesn't work very well either, although we've kept it....

The hatch has a saw kerf sized slot on 4 sides.

I have used rolled up towels as a "draft dodger" and the door has a rubber sweep on it.

I thought, eventually, what I want is like piping trim, narrow on one side, fat on the other, but fabric won't work unless I want to spent 15 minutes every time we open the hatch replacing it. So, no. I tried the strips made to go next to ranges, doesn't fit.

I have tried a myriad set of solutions. It needs to be cheap, easily hand made, easily removable, and easily duplicated in case of desctruction, etc.

Yesterday it occurred to me that I should use cardboard. This seems like it has a lot more promise than my other ideas. I took paper mache classes as a kid for years, so I'm comfortable cutting cardboard, etc. My test piece seems to work.

My partner didn't say NO! and so I will keep measuring, cutting, and eventually taping this paper frankenstein together, with handles which will hopefully make it easy to remove.

What do you build with cardboard?

What would you do?

I sometimes do paper mache, but also use it as temporary fixes for steadying furniture, filling gaps, safely containing/moving broken glass, file dividers, creating a cushion under furniture feet or heavy items that sit on scratchable surfaces, temporary pet beds, blocking bases, for crochet, felting, etc, creating a 'blind' around/between critter crates or pens, blocking intrusive light, and (the saddest) the occasional funeral pyre material, for livestock, *if* the livestock can't be otherwise utilized...

Granted, most of these are temporary uses, but it's still at least one more use, before the stuff is destroyed.

There is a cardboard chair in this post:

https://permies.com/t/42247/permaculture-upcycling/ways-recycle-cardboard-furniture-design#393785

I watch a lot of HGTV and sometimes there is cardboard furniture Like this:

https://www.roominabox.com/collections/cardboard-furniture?srsltid=AfmBOoqxvPM5ih1M7l6eM0Mw2rWghcvGSfbOQuAYNsPCmHo7HG6rdkMW