Process for the manufacture of honeycomb core structures

A process for the manufacture of honeycomb core structures consisting essentially of the steps of continuously feeding a starting continuous sheet of material to an adhesive applicator;

• applying to said sheet an amount of adhesive at intervals along the width of the sheet to form a plurality of spaced parallel adhesive bands;
• drying the applied adhesive;
• thereafter forming a plurality of parallel spaced apart slits extending longitudinally along the sheet, said slits being longitudinally spaced along the length of the sheet and interconnected by slit-devoid sheet portions extending transversely across the sheet and spaced at predetermined intervals along the continuous length of the sheet;
• cutting the resulting slitted sheet to a predetermined dimension across the slit-devoid sheet portions to provide cut sheets having at least one of said slit-devoid portions interconnected said longitudinally spaced slits;
• piling a plurality of layers of the thus cut sheets upon one another in a stack with said adhesive bands on adjacent sheets being positioned out of registry with one another by half of a pitch between consecutive parallel bands on each cut sheet;
• compressively curing the adhesive on the stacked sheets to form a cured stack;
• slicing the cured stack across the width thereof along one or more lines extending transversely across the slit-devoid portions to form individual elongated strips;
• and
• expanding said strips in a direction normal to the plane of the stacking.