Extrusion die for forming thin walled honeycomb structures

An extrusion die for extruding and forming a thin-walled honeycomb structure, said die including a body plate and a face plate each having an inlet surface , [and] an outlet surface, and an outlet portion the outlet surface of said body plate being in facing, abutting contact with the inlet surface of said face plate, said body plate having a plurality of parallel, elongated, primary feed holes each having a longitudinal axis, said primary feed holes extending from the inlet to the outlet surface of said body plate, [the inlet surface of said face plate having a plurality of recesses to thereby define a plurality of feed reservoirs, an outlet end of each of said primary feed holes communicating with a respective feed reservoir,] said face plate [also] having a plurality of parallel, secondary feed holes, the outlet [surface] portion of said face plate having a plurality of intersecting slot segments defining a plurality of rectangular pins having a pair of opposite longer sides , each pin bordered and defined by a plurality of slot segments, an outlet end of each of said secondary feed holes communicating with an associated, respective, intersection of said slot segments, [each feed reservoir communicating with inlet ends of an associated plurality of said secondary feed holes, said primary feed holes being arranged in horizontal rows and being substantially uniformly spaced from each other in any horizontal row, and wherein corresponding primary feed holes of adjacent horizontal rows are horizontally displaced from each other to thereby define columnwise staggered primary feed holes,] whereby material to be extruded passes from an inlet to the outlet end of each primary feed hole, [thence to a respective feed reservoir,] thence to the inlet end of each of a plurality of associated secondary feed holes, thence to the outlet end of each said secondary feed hole, thence to an associated slot segment intersection, thence both horizontally and downwardly from each associated slot intersection, to thereby form a honeycomb extrudate having continuous and interconnected parallel channels therein[.] the extrusion die being further characterized in that the inlet surface of said face plate has a plurality of recesses to thereby define a plurality of feed reservoirs, an outlet end of each of said primary feed holes communicating with a respective feed reservoir, each feed reservoir communicating with inlet ends of an associated plurality of said secondary feed holes, and in that said primary feed holes are arranged in rows parallel to the longer sides of the rectangular pins, the primary feed holes being uniformly spaced from each other in any said row, corresponding primary feed holes of adjacent said rows being displaced from each other lengthwise of the rows so that the primary feed holes form staggered columns running transverse to the rows.