Applying Beautiful Finishes with Wood Grain Powder Coating

When a customer is seeking a beautiful wood grain look without the upkeep requirements and lifespan issues of actual wood, they come to Advanced Finishing. Using Decoral licensed equipment, films, and powders, we can finish steel and aluminum with a powder coating that provides an incredibly authentic wood grain appearance and texture with more resistance to the elements than even the best treated wood can offer.

Common uses applications for this process include finishing work for architectural applications such as ceiling systems, internal and external building cladding powder coating. They also include providing a wood-like finish to window, door, and curtain wall framings, environmental control sunshade systems, railings, and more. When styling difficult to access architectural items such as window trims and façade panels, wood grain powder coating is the perfect solution to provide a wood grain appearance while also providing UV and element resistance to ensure an extensive finishing lifespan.

Polyurethane Based Powder Coating for an Authentic Wood Finish

Utilizing powders that are almost exclusively polyurethane based, Advanced Finishing can easily create wood grain powder coating solutions that provide a light or dark wood appearance that mimics standard woods like oak, pine, and maple, as well as exotic woods like mahogany, teak, burlwood, and more. In addition to their appearance, these coatings also provide a textured feel when being applied to touchable surfaces like hand railings. The purpose of using polyurethane resin as our powder coating base is to afford the most authentic wood appearance possible. The semi-transparency of polyurethane allows for light absorption that affords warmth and depth, which is unobtainable with other common coatings.

A Perfect Powder Coating Process When Done Correctly

Our process of applying a realistic wood grain style finish begins with pre-treatment, without which the lifespan of the coating will be compromised. Powder coating rarely fails as a process, but without proper pretreatment the resulting coating will fail far sooner than a properly pre-treated part, particularly when exposed to an extreme outdoor environment.

Upon completion of pre-treatment, a polyurethane powder coat is applied and then fully cured to ensure a proper semi-translucent base. The intent of the semi-translucent base is to afford the finished product a warmth and depth that other powder coating solutions cannot. Following this step, the desired wood grain appearance is applied to the coated substrate via a textile film that has a computer-generated image printed on it via special dye sublimation inks.

The substrate, which can be up to 24’ long, is wrapped in this film then transported to a Decoral vacuum system, which removes all air between the film and the substrate to create a tight seal.

The wrapped and vacuum sealed product is then heated. This heating and pressure combination causes the film’s dye to transfer into the powder coating through sublimation. When removed from the oven, the film is released to reveal its wood grain has been completely transferred, lending the product the desired wood grain appearance.

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