what is sunmica or Laminates?

Sunmica Finishes

Raw Material

Sunmica is another name for decorative laminates and it is primarily used as a surface finish pasted on top of another wooden or board members. .

Implementation Raw Material

To implement a sunmica or decorative laminate based design in your home, you work with the designer to get the drawing of the furniture item and purchase the required block boards or MDF/HDF or similar wooden members. The sunmica or decorative laminates are then pasted on top of the wood member. You do not need to polish the sunmica based furniture.

Maintenance

Sunmica based furniture requires less maintenance compared to veneer based furniture. General day to day maintenance can be done by just using dry or wet cloth to wipe the sunmica surface These laminates do not take polish so there is no need to do periodic polish on these.

Color; Design

Sun mica / Laminate sheets come in a wide variety of colors, styles and designs. These also come in artificial wooden grain styles or colors too so the laminate based designs have options for both natural designs and man-made designs Laminates comes in  matt and glossy finish.

Advantages

Lower cost Impact and scratch resistant Stain resistant Don’t need wax or polish Easy to install Durable when compared to veneer It needs very little maintenance when compared to veneer.

Disadvantages

Some design conscious people say that the Laminate based furniture is not rich looking furniture. As laminates cover the base wood, it is hard to adjudge the quality of wood members used under the laminate/sunmica

IS Designation

Sun mica finishes/ decorative laminates should be according IS 2046-1995

Uses

Sun mica finishes/ decorative laminates are used as surface materials on counters, desk tops, cabinets, wardrobes etc. It is also used to provide a neat aesthetic surface on wall paneling too.

Size Availability

Sun mica finishes/ decorative laminates are available in size of 2.44mx 1.22 meter.

Installation/ fixing

The Sun mica / laminates are fixed on the supporting base of ply wood, block board, particle board etc by adhesives. The supporting base should be sanded and free from dust, wax, grease etc. After applying proper adhesive the sheet of laminate is spread and hand rolled from centre to edge and remove all air bubbles.  To ensure adequate bond, sufficient pressure should be applied over the entire area of assembly.

Thickness

Thin single face Sun mica finishes/ decorative laminates have thickness of less than 2mm. High pressure sun mica finishes/ decorative laminates are available in thickness of 0.8, 1.0 and 1.5 mm.

Finishing

Decorative laminates come pre-finished and do not require any additional  finishing.

Durability

The laminates are  durable and are used as surface materials and improve their resistance to wear, scratching and domestic stain etc. http://www.designaddict.us

Advertisement