What is honeycomb?
Honeycomb is the material that I am currently using between the skins in my double-tops. It is made by a number of manufacturers, and comes in a variety of materials and sizes. Right now Im using Hexcels aramid-fiber honeycomb, which, frankly, looks like it might be made from brown paper bags. The cells are hexagonal and are about 2-3 mm across; the aramid paper, which is a synthetic, forms the cell walls. It’s certainly possible to use other materials in place of honeycomb. Gernot Wagner once described to me a system that he had used that employed tiny strips of balsa wood arranged in a grid between the skins. I imagine that it gave good results, but the advantage of honeycomb is that it is extremely light – only a few grams are needed for a guitar top. Honeycomb is not new. The aeronautics industry has been using it for many decades; there is a substantial engineering literature about it and its use in composite construction. And honeybees figured out the structural advantages of hex
