Q. One of our customers is facing a problem in getting an accurate finish in a wood-look finish. They tried three methods of application for the wood grain appearance:
Wood impression paper with gum
Wood impression paper with vacuum
Wood impression plastic film with vacuum
We are using a powder with a 10-year warranty as the powder coating base. We are not able to remove all gum or residues and produce the proper wood impression on the aluminum extrusion. Can you help?—S.M.
A. Creating a wood grain appearance over powder as you describe requires a specific powder base. I have not tried using the powder you mentioned for this application, but I suspect that the powder is the issue rather than the process.
The only successful operations I have seen actually use a powder that is made specifically for the wood grain application and supplied by the same company that makes the film. I am sure that another supplier could formulate a powder for this application with enough research, but I haven’t seen anyone do it yet. I think your customer needs to work with the supplier that makes the film.
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