Tricel Honeycomb

Tricel Honeycomb is basically Kraft Paper (like the brown stuff they make clasp envelopes out of) that has been fabricated to form a continuous sheet of honeycomb like cells. Hey, if it works for the bees it oughta work for Tricel. The resultant product can be infused with phenolic resins (to resist rot, mold, bugs and critters), cut, bent and used as low rent housing for bees - not.

Applications include automotive, marine, display signs, furniture and almost anything else that requires structural strength and rigidity at a low strength to weight ratio. And it's economical for many situations where plywood, particle board and similar materials are just too expensive.

But you ask - why are we here at Truck and Car Floor Mats Dot Com interested in this stuff. Well, this kraft paper honeycomb product from Tricel is used by almost every North American manufacturer of fiberglass tonneau covers and truck caps to provide rigidity and structural integrity to their fiberglass. Besides adding to the strength of the fiberglass it saves on glass and resin, making the resultant product more economically viable. All this is important unless you want your beautiful fiberglass tonneau cover cracking the first time you lean on it. So lets give some thanks to Blaine and Steve Loudin who started Tricel in 1982. If we didn't have Tricel all our beautiful fiberglass tonnos and caps just wouldn't be the same.

Tricel Honeycomb Info

Paper Honeycomb is what Tricel calls this product. They further go on to describe it as "an open geometric pattern with cell walls manufactured from kraft paper". When required the honeycomb is treated with phenolic resins. Tricel uses a sine wave configuration to define the placement and size of each individual paper cell in the honeycomb. So they got the bees beat there. I don't know a bee yet that's had a trigonometry class! And what's really cool is that Tricel can adjust the cell size, measured by the amplitude of the sine wave, to fit your application.

Sheets of honeycomb can be as big as 5' x 10' but are typically 4' x  8' or thereabouts. The sheet can be between 4/10" to 5" in thickness. This stuff gets stronger and stronger the thicker it gets. Even when wet the phenolic resin treated product retains a significant portion of its strength.

Applications in which Tricel Honeycomb is used are pretty diverse. You can use most glues to attach all kinds of facing materials, you can laminate it to most anything that can carry a load, you can make curved panels and you can cut this stuff with an Exacto knife.

Tricel is Environmentally Conscious. Many of the Tricel products are made from recycled materials and in most cases are highly recyclable themselves.

Note: You must have an RSS Reader installed and configured before clicking on the Orange RSS Button. An RSS Reader allows automatic download of changes/updates made to this website without having to visit this page. Saves time, effort and keeps you up to date.

Click Orange RSS Button to Subscribe to Site Updates