As the fastest growing segment of the hardwood flooring industry, Pre-finished hardwood flooring is in high demand by the home improvement market segment. This demand is fueling the hardwood flooring manufacturers' need to meet the required supply levels with superior factory-finished products, which have become Premier's prime business focus.
This demand was also the impetus behind the development of Premiere's flat-line wood surface finishing process, which produces a finished product, exceeding end-user requirements for durability and appearance.
Premiere's contract prefinished wood panels are also produced using Premiere's flat-line wood surface finishing process meeting rigid individual customer specifications. |
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Our Finishing Process
For a step-by-step description (and photo) of Premiere’s Flat-Line wood finishing process, point and click on the production stations illustrated in this diagram.
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Flatline Prefinished Flooring Process
Our “Premiere” finishing process takes approximately eight and one half (8 ½) minutes to bring a raw, machined piece of wood through a transformation into a beautifully finished, boxed, piece of quality flooring ready to ship to a happy consumer. Quality is achieved on this high speed system by maintaining a strictly controlled process for consistent, repeatable results. To achieve these results, we start our process with a series of incoming material inspections to determine the tongue and groove dimensions, the overall thickness, moisture content and the general milling quality of the flooring. This helps us determine the proper set-up for our finishing line as well as the suitability of the product for finishing.
Our line is 52 inches wide and runs at 55 feet a minute, which potentially allows 8,500 square feet an hour to be completed. The smallest runnable length of material is 9” (although at least 12” is preferred); the longest can be 12’ in length. Our continuous finishing operation is capable of many set-up combinations due to the number of process stations located along its 450 foot length. We will determine which set-up is appropriate for the “look” and characteristics you desire for the product you are selling.
The first, and arguably the most important process station, is the sanding operation. This consists of two sanders, a “calibration” sander and “surface, polishing” sander. The calibration sander is set-up to remove approximately .010” from the bottom and the surface sander removes about .020” to create flooring that is consistently the same dimensionally and smooth enough to finish. Sanded flooring should then have a very minimal thickness variation. A panel cleaning brush removes any dust residue on the surface of the boards as they pass to the next process station, staining/tiecoating.
The staining/tiecoat station consists of roller coaters; stain brushes, and curing ovens. Configuration for proper application varies dependant on whether waterborne stains or UV cured stains or tie-coats are required for the particular finish. One consistent part of this operation is the waterborne stain-curing oven. It is also used for the UV stain/tiecoat operation to raise the surface temperature of the wood to create consistency in the finishing process from summer to winter. Water naturally causes the grain of wood to raise causing very tiny “splinters” to rise up from the surface. A denibbing station, (a brush roller that is used as a sanding device) is located after the staining operation to remove any “raised grain” caused by the staining process. UV stains will be smoothed during the denibbing process. Both waterborne and UV cured stain surfaces will be prepared for the “fill” operation, if necessary.
The “fill” process station may not be necessary on all species finished at Premiere. If the surface of the flooring is more “open grained” or slightly rough, (in species such as Red Oak), the fill operation will be used. The material is run through a roller coater that packs a thin coating of UV cured material into the pores of the wood and then passes through a series of UV lights for curing. Filling creates a smoother, more consistent surface on which to apply the remaining finish coats. Another denibbing station follows the fill operation which smoothes the surface for the first of the sealers.
In the summer of 2004 a second filler machine was installed on the Premiere line to run in tandem with the original one. We can now “double fill” the exceptionally open pore sometimes found on exotic woods and on many veneers. This additional station provides Premiere with finishing flexibility second to none in the industry.
Next is the HA (high abrasion) sealer, a UV cured material which provides the wear resistance guarantee we provide to our customers is applied. The flooring moves through an infrared oven and a UV light curing station. A second sealer is applied, UV cured and then the material passes through a series of denibbing brushes and a panel cleaner which ready the surface for the topcoating operation.
The UV cured topcoat material contains Ceramic particles for scratch resistance and gloss retention. It can be applied with up to three (3) roller coaters for a smooth and even finish. The gloss level is determined with the last topcoat, which is not denibbed. The flooring next passes through a “chilling” unit, which lowers the surface temperature of the pieces so they can be safely handled by the Quality inspection and packing team.
Each piece of finished flooring is examined for finishing and machining defects. All “first quality” flooring is placed directly into a box, labels are placed on the box and it is ready for shipment as directed by the customer. If any defects are found, the pieces are removed from the process to be end-matched, re-finished or boxed as “cabin grade”, depending on the customer’s preference. The end-matching and re-finishing processes increase the yield and profitability of the run for our customer. |
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