Hexagonal carton
ECMA C10.40.20.20
Six walls with a tuck lid at both ends. For jars, candles and gifts.
- Example size
- 92 × 80 × 100 mm internal
- Blank
- 296 × 311 mm
- Pieces
- 1 blank
- Board choices
- 12 boards, 0.45 to 7 mm
Free to design and to check in 3D. €2.50 for the PDF, €3.50 for the DXF or SVG.
What this box is, in other words
Candles, jars, honey, tea tins and gift sets: a round product leaves 9 % of a hexagon empty and 21 % of a square box, so it moves less in transit.
How it closes. Six walls glued into a tube. Each end has a hexagonal closing panel that folds over, with a tuck flap on the edge opposite its hinge that slides down inside the far wall.
Worth knowing. Measure across the flats, wall to opposite wall, not corner to corner. A jar of 80 mm needs a width of at least 80 mm across the flats.
Also called
hexagonal box hexagon box six sided box honeycomb box hexagonal carton candle box hexagon six sided honeycomb candle jar gift
Same construction, different trade. If you came looking for one of those, this is it.
How this one is built
- Hexagonal tuck carton (ECMA C10.40.20.20): six walls glued into a tube, a hexagonal closing panel with a tuck flap at each end.
- The walls fold 60 degrees each. Every closing-panel edge except the hinge is 1.70 mm inside the wall, so the tuck flap slides down behind its wall without rubbing.
- The tuck flaps go behind different walls, and never behind the one with the glue flap.
Board options
The drawing changes when you change the board: thickness compensation is built into every fold, so a 4 mm C-flute blank is not the same shape as a 0.45 mm carton blank.
- F-flute corrugated (0.8 mm)
- E-flute corrugated (1.5 mm)
- B-flute corrugated (3.0 mm)
- C-flute corrugated (4.0 mm)
- EB double wall (4.5 mm)
- BC double wall (7.0 mm)
- SBS / GC1 board 350 gsm (0.45 mm)
- FBB / GC2 board 400 gsm (0.55 mm)
- Kraft / GD2 board 400 gsm (0.50 mm)
- Greyboard 1.0 mm (rigid)
- Prototype board 1.0 mm
- Prototype board 2.0 mm
Questions about this box
- What is the ECMA code for a hexagonal carton?
- ECMA C10.40.20.20: group C, base 40 for a six-cornered section, and 20.20 for a tuck closure at both ends.
- Does a round jar fit a hexagonal box?
- Yes, if the width across the flats is at least the diameter of the jar. The corners then leave a little room for padding.
- Is this dieline free?
- Designing it and folding it in 3D are free and need no account. Downloading it is paid: €2.50 for the PDF to print and measure on paper, and €3.50 for a production file - DXF or SVG - because those are the ones that go to a cutting table.
- What is a dieline?
- The flat drawing a box is cut from. It shows where the knife cuts, where the board is creased to fold, and where it is perforated. A die maker turns it into a steel rule die; a plotter or laser cuts it directly. It is also written as "die line" or "die cut template".
- What file format does a die maker need?
- DXF, almost always. Ours is R12 DXF at 1:1 in millimetres with cut, crease, reverse crease and perforation each on their own layer, which is what a cutting table expects. The SVG is the same geometry for Illustrator, Affinity, Inkscape and laser software.
- Can I use it commercially?
- Yes. The files are yours: modify them, print them, make any number of boxes from them. No attribution and no licence fee, ever.
What you can change
3 parameters on the first screen, 6 more behind advanced settings.
- Width across flats (W) — Inside distance between two opposite walls.
- Height (H)
- Board caliper (t)