Ceilings, cladding, curtain walls, and partitions with wood grain aluminum are often seen in commercial buildings. In the home interior decoration, wood effect aluminum doors and windows are prevalent now, and aluminum furniture cabinets with wood grain color have begun into the market. Now you can see many wood colors in garden design, like fencing and gates, decking, house siding, railing. Compared with the surface of RAL color, the wood finish on aluminum is more lively, atmospheric, and close to nature.
So how to make aluminum that looks like wood?
There are mainly two methods for making aluminum that looks like wood: SUBLIMATION PROCESS (famous as Decoral), and POWDER ON POWDER PROCESS(famous as Naturall).
SUBLIMATION PROCESS to get a wood grain finish on aluminum is the most commonly used technology for the aluminum industry in China. FONNOV ALUMINIUM, as a professional aluminum extrusion manufacturer, with both woodgrain sublimation production lines and powder coating production lines, would like to introduce how to make aluminum that looks like wood through the sublimation process.
At present, most of the wood grain sublimation process is:
aluminum pretreatment ➟ base-color powder coating & curing ➟ wood grain transfer paper covering ➟ curing ➟ paper removal.
»Aluminum Pretreatment:
The aluminum extrusion material must be pretreated before powder coating spraying so that it can improve the adhesion of the aluminum metal surface to the coating.
»The Base-color Powder Coating and Curing:
The powder coating process adopts electrostatic spraying, and the powder coatings that are used must be special coatings for the wood grain sublimation process. Then to be cured for 20 minutes.
»Wood Grain Transfer Paper Covering:
Wrap the extruded aluminum profile, which needs to be transferred with wood grain paper, then vacuum to be tight.
»Curing:
The wrapped aluminum material is sent to the oven for curing.
»Paper-removal:
After curing, the aluminum profile is pushed out from the oven, and the plastic bag and wood grain paper are pulled out.
After curing, the aluminum profile is pushed out from the oven, and the plastic bag and wood grain paper are pulled out.
This process gives you a clear and realistic wood finish on aluminum. If there are some problems in any step, it may cause the wood grain to be ghosted, unclear, or the surface is not smooth. Therefore, the guidance of the powder coating factory and the wood grain paper/film factory is necessary before production to produce a high-performance aluminum that looks like wood.
This video made by FONNOV ALUMINIUM also can help you know clearly on the above sublimation process.