UK joinery giant Jeld-Wen (UK) Ltd has invested more than £1m in a state-of-the-art finishing line for wood veneer doors.
The Giardina pre-finishing and finishing line has been installed at the John Carr manufacturing plant in Melton Mowbray, which has experienced increasing demand for veneer doors, especially in more unusual commercially available veneers such as cherry, teak, beech and ash.
Ian Purkis, Jeld-Wen technical manager, said: “It is our belief that investments of this magnitude are necessary to remain competitive and lead the market with top quality products and design choices.”
The equipment applies an acrylic UV lacquer, supplied by Becker Acroma, to both faces of internal flush veneer doors. Jeld-Wen reports improvements to the evenness of the coating, consistency of gloss and the natural colours of the veneers.
Doors are pre-finished on six Tagliabue wide belt top and bottom sanders before entering the Giardina roller coating line. Here they receive further fine sanding and three base lacquer coats with intermediate gel coats, before being cured in a UV tunnel equipped with a three-lamp GST system with parabolic reflectors to distribute radiation.
The final process sees doors passing through a double-headed Tagliabue wide belt sander for denibbing before receiving two top finish coats and further curing in another UV tunnel.
Doors are automatically turned 90? on a windmill system and the reverse surface is then finished using an identical process to the first line.
