Honeycomb board is an innovative material used for insulation and packaging, among other uses. The Honeycomb Board Manufacturing Process is relatively new to the world of manufacturing but growing rapidly in popularity. Here are a few steps in Honeycomb Board Manufacturing.
Prepare the raw material
Raw materials or “stock” are prepared for manufacturing. For insulation honeycomb board, the main ingredient is plastic. This plastic is melted and turned into a fibrous-like substance called “strand.” These strands are then fed through a machine and cut to size using knives and blades (similar to how you make sugar cane). The blades pull in these fibers, causing them to bend into their unique hexagon shape, making up the honeycomb pattern.
Create honeycomb shapes from strands of plastic
The strand-making process leaves uncut portions of plastic between each cut portion (forming the beeswax-like cells). Next, more powerful jets of air are used to blow out any excess plastic on each honeycomb shape, leaving it completely hollow.
Cut shapes into board sheets
Next, these “board blanks” are cut into large hexagonal sheet sizes that can be used for insulation or further processed to create packaging materials. The size of these boards varies depending on the desired use of the material. Most commonly known is the DOW® Brand Coroplast®, available at Office Depot®, which is ready-made for signage applications. Some manufacturers also produce larger honeycomb board panels up to 10’x10′.
Die-cut shapes out of sheets
The final step is where the manufacturing process gets more interesting and makes this product so versatile! Two different methods exist to shape this plastic board into its many desired forms. The first is where the board is cut into smaller shapes using a die-cutting method, which cuts out your final product. This process usually produces less waste material than the second method of thermoforming because there are no excess materials to be trimmed away after heating the plastic.
Thermoforming (or vacuum forming) is another process for shaping this honeycomb board, and creating even less waste material is called thermoforming (or vacuum forming). In this process, uncut sheets of hexagonal-shaped honeycomb board sheeting are heated lengthwise until pliable enough to form around complex three-dimensional shapes or molds. With the application of heat and air pressure, these two elements help to give shape to any object can imagine (such as our Honeycomb Christmas Ornaments, available at The Home Depot®).
Trim excess material away from the product to make it precise and clean.
These are just some of the steps involved in Honeycomb Board Manufacturing. But, in order to make it a truly useful material, the manufacturing process is not over yet. After thermoforming or die-cutting honeycomb board into any shape you can imagine, excess material is trimmed away from each product to create a clean and precise acquisition that fits perfectly with one another to meet your intended use.
