When you order a Skywoods laminate, you are ensured of well thought out, customer proven, and systematic process.

Owner of its exclusive and patented process, Skywoods leads a chain of European providers and subcontractors located around the head office. They are all certified for ISO 9001. Each manufacturing stage has redundant suppliers ensuring a constant availability of products.

Depending on the required quantity, our production schedule is based a 2 to 6 weeks turnaround, but can vary according to order complexity. Samples can be shipped within 10 days, depending on availability and research. We always keep clients in the project loop to avoid surprises.

The layout process is as follows:

1. The layout type

The laminates are available in either three-layer or two-layer format.
Three-layer format (SW1 ANT):

• a decorative face wood veneer thickness (0,6mm)
• a thin aluminum sheet
• a sheet of backing wood veneer

The sandwich is assembled in a hot press with specific dry glue films. The assembly does not contain any fire retardant salt.

Two-layer format (SW1 PT):

• a decorative face wood veneer thickness (0,6mm)
• fiberglass skin / phenolic resin

The sandwich is assembled in a hot press with specific polymerizable dry glue films. The assembly is stabilized and balanced through micro crazing. This format has been developed for use with polyester varnish. Fire-retardant salts on this veneer are compulsory.

This product can be adjusted in order to solve specific technical problems (thicker wood backing without additional stiffness or weight; cross-laminated face and back veneer to ease radius shaping of the veneer grain, etc.)

2. The face veneer

Great care is taken to select veneer logs to ensure the appearance is homogeneous and harmonious. Our supplier network allows us to quickly localize the best logs. We take special care to select sequenced logs that follow one another for reproducible patterns in monuments.

When repairs are necessary, we never use putty! We add a small piece of veneer of irregular shape, which has been removed from the same sheet, so that repairs are hardly seen. We are also able to sand the veneer with an accuracy of 0,1mm.

3. Veneer seaming

Burl wood veneer cutting and “four-piece book” seaming are done to get a perfect image. Except for marquetries, the assembly of sheet is carried out on the veneer edge with hot polymerizable urea-formaldehyde glue, and not on the face with adhesive paper or thermofusible threads. Thus veneer sheets remain seamed together even after sanding.

The interest is to get perfectly sealed and strong seams, which allows the laminate to bend without breaking. Seams thus achieved are watertight which avoids varnish percolation and cross-staining.

4. Assembly lamination

This is carried out by hot pressing / laminating with glue films specifically designed to adhere on aluminum. The resin reactivity allows moderate pressing without extending pressing cycles to keep wood colour from being affected by excessive heat. The glue line thus achieved is strong and totally water resistant and has an excellent behaviour in fire.

The interest of using dry glue films instead of liquid adhesives is to prevent glue from seeping through and ensure perfect evenness to the glue line. Thus, the face veneer remains totally clean and dry. It can then become homogeneously impregnated with finish varnish, thus stressing all wood depth and movements.

5. Aluminum central ply

Suppleness and flatness: 
The isotropic aluminum central ply allows the grain of the 2 external plies to be in the same direction, allowing for a product hardly curved and stable. Moreover, aluminum gives the product high bending capacities. 

Since laminate tensions are low, it is often not necessary to balance on either side with a honeycomb panel to ensure flatness over time, which means significant time and weight savings.

Fire retardant treatment: 
The aluminum central ply allows to fireproof the veneer without applying any fire retardant agent on the veneer. Fire retardant treatments are usually fire retardant salts (bio phosphates, boron salts, etc…) that often damage the veneer (stains, colour changes) and the varnish (bubbling, delamination’s, and crystallizations). Moreover, they attract humidity, eventually causing corrosion phenomena.

Weight: According to the laminate version, Skywoods allows a weight saving from 20 to 50% compared to the usual three-layer wood, that is to say from 200 to 500gr/sqm.

6. Marquetries

Specific care is taken to assemble marquetries, when appropriate. Our choice has been fixed upon laser cutting that ensures perfectly sealed seams. Fine adjustments of the beam allow for attenuation of the black border effect that sometimes results from veneer combustion.

7. Standard 60 seconds vertical burn-test (JAR/FAR 25 853)