How is finish foil made？

Finish foil paper, also referring to PU foil paper, is made of base paper, ink and polyurethane lacquer. Which is a cost-effective material widely used in furniture surfaces such as interior fittings, cabinets and RTA furniture, as well as other surfaces like picture frames.

The whole production mainly includes two parts-printing and coating processes. Here let’s talk about how we make the exact finish foil paper as customers require.

Preparing

Firstly, preparing all the production materials based on customer’s sample and requests. Which includes the base paper of required weight, ink of matched colors, PU resin, specific cylinders and so on.

Matching the samples

When the machine is fully set up, it’s time to produce a small piece of paper to check its color, gloss and surface effect compared to customer’s sample. Color is the trickiest factor here, different brand of ink or different sources of light can cause color difference. Normally, this procedure repeats several times until we make the paper with the same effect within allowed error range. Matching the samples is a crucial step before mass production to make sure product consistency.

Manufacturing

After knowing how to make the exact paper on request, it’s time to move forward to manufacture. Where base paper in roll transfer into rolls of finish foil paper with printed decor and PU coating on top. This procedure mainly refers to three parts: printing, coating and drying process.

The printing process requires Multi Color Rotogravure Printing Machine. Generally, this is a process to transfer the ink in the depressions of the engraved gravure to the base paper.

The coating process is also finished at the same machine after printing. Choosing one-time coating or twice coating according to customer’s request and surface effects.

After that, paper the paper passes through a long dryer to drive off the solvent. Finally, base paper turns into rolls of finish foil paper as required.

Drying and rewinding

When finishing production, there are two steps left- drying and rewinding.

Those foil papers need to stay in the drying room for about 3~4 days to dry off the solvent so that the ink and resin can stick tightly on the paper. And then, those papers can go to rewind to be reshaped.

This is the general procedure to manufacture finish foil paper as customers request. To understand more intuitively, this video (https://youtu.be/86tX4rGzOkU ) can help a lot. It shows how finish foil paper is made by gravure printing machine.