Decorative Panels are pleased to announce the launch of our new range of specialist high gloss materials under the “dp-reflections” umbrella.
This exiting new range includes “Ultimate” which is a high gloss ABS foil available in 0.7mm - 1.0 mm thicknesses – all designs are laminated with a protective film in place.
The “Premier” and “Select” ranges cover alternative high gloss materials including PVC and Paper foils.
The dp-reflections range is available in 1220mm widths and lengths from 1860mm to 3660mm and can be laminated onto a range of substrates including MDF, Plywood and also our dp-lite hollowcore range.
There are sixteen standard colours available, six of which will be kept in stock, enabling a fast turn-round. A full swatch is available on request.
Products from the dp-reflections range will be available in smaller quantities as well as bulk and we will also be offering finished products such as doors into the Kitchen, Bathroom and Bedroom manufacturing sectors.
Please call us for more information.

Additionally, we have just released a range of thin Continuous Pressure Laminate (CPL) which can be laminated onto MDF, Chipboard, Plywood and dp-lite hollowcore.
A choice of industry standard woodgrains and unicolours is available and can be purchased in single pack lots without any major commitment to underwriting large stocks.
This can be laminated single or double sided and provides a laminate finish with many of the advantages of High Pressure Laminate (HPL) – but with much more flexibility encompassed within a commercially priced package.
A swatch of the CPL designs will be available in the near future.
Please call us for more information.

Please contact our Sales team to receive further information or a swatch. Tel: 01484 658341.

Decorative Panels is developing a revolutionary new laminating line in conjunction with long-time German technology partner Hymmen to raise standards of gloss finishing to a wide range of substrates.

UK agent David Miller says that the proposed line is a first for Britain - probably the world - and that its flexibility and quality standards will put Decorative Panels in a league of its own for surface finishing a broad range of wood based panel materials.

The new Hymmen line is scheduled for installation in late summer this year and has been designed to meet a wide range of needs, the first of which is its compact 40 metre dimensions which are vital in order to meet space availability in the Decorative Panels factory in Elland. The new line is being tailored for installation in the extension that was built to accommodate the relatively recently installed hollowcore board manufacturing line for dp-lite®.

A wide range of gloss finishing specifications has been addressed in the development of the new line - it will apply everything from top quality 0.8mm acrylic gloss materials through to 0.75mm PVC's, gloss papers already in the Decorative Panels portfolio and 0.2mm CPL's in roll form. And the line will also operate in conjunction with an unusually wide range of substrates including MDF, chipboard, hollowcore, hardboard and ply.

Factory trials in Germany showed that finishing materials react in different ways with alternative substrates and adhesives. The new Decorative Panels' line will process a range of adhesive types and will condition substrates before lamination to meet the very highest customer finishing specifications. Lamination director Stephen Cadwell reports that Decorative Panels is investing upwards of £2m in the gloss finishing project and that the ability of the new technology to cross reference substrates, adhesives and finishing materials will open up 'many new markets for Decorative Panels'.

"It's always exciting working with Decorative Panels," says Hymmen's David Miller. "Their experience in the laminating field is enormous and they always know exactly what they want to achieve, which leaves the technology development squarely in the hands of the specialists.

"Although this will be the fifth of the current generation of lines that we have jointly developed for Decorative Panels, it's the first to this exacting specification. And, because of its ground-breaking versatility, this one is perhaps THE single most exciting."

Please contact our Sales team to recieve and information pack. Tel: 01484 658341.

Decorative Panels are busy heavily promoting their new dp-lite® hollowcore board product, which is being well received across the furniture manufacturing and interior fitting sectors in the UK.

The installation of a new manufacturing line at Elland was in response to the rising trent for chunkier furniture. Given the huge potential of hollowcore panels, Decorative Panels were confident enough to invest heavily in a unique and hi-tech production line.

"We are finding as we go along how many people there are in various market sectore who have uses for thicker, better looking panels that are, by way of a bonus, a fraction of the weight to move around - whether for delivery to customers or on site," says Phil Dalton. "We are now seeing the breadth of the market in the UK and of course the extent of it right across Europe."

In addition to extensive design and processing information, the new dp-lite® Solutions aims to provide the industry with further extensive information on how dp-lite® can be applied which, Phil Dalton says, grows broader as time moves forward.

Also it details the range of the product's availability. Cutsomers can purchase in 22mm, 35mm or 50mm thickness options, as full sheet material - laminated or raw - or alternatively as completely finished, processed panels.

For additional flexibility, dp-lite® is also available with the option of longitudinal rails spaced and inserted within the board. In broad terms, dp-lite® can be cut, drilled, shaped, edged and finished in all the same ways as chipboard and MDF.

Phil Dalton reports that dp-lite® can be processed and converted to fully finished panels, available in bulk or as a fully packed unit ready for assembly, at one of Decorative Panels' three shopfloor sites in Huddersfield - and all bespoke manufactured to customer specifications. Dp-lite® is essentially frameless, however the addition of longitudinal rails allow for applications such as grooving for back panel fixing or alternatively to allow for post forming of the leading edge - all of which is achievable within the Decorative Panels Group.

All three thickness options utilise 5mm sanded MDF skins which allow for ABS or PVC edging directly onto the hollowcore using most conventional edgebanders. The minimum recommended tape thickness is 1.5mm with an unsupported edge.

The Decorative Panels portfolio of foil finishes allows the Huddersfield company to offer around 100 laminated designs, including fabulous woodgrains and uni-colour effects. With the insertion of a rail at the leading edge of a dp-lite® panel, Decorative Panels has the capability to wrap the surface finish right around a shaped edge by means of direct post-forming, putting the join out of sight on the underside of the panel. This makes for a very smooth edge finish that ideal for worktops and shelving in a range of applications including virtually everything except kitchen work surfaces.

Both flexibility and versatility are major selling points of dp-lite® which can be laminated using the same foils as chipboard or MDF panels for a completely colour-co-ordinated unit. These foils also match most of the commercially important CPL's, vinyls and HPLs, not to mention veneers - so all show panels can be visually co-ordinated for maximum selling effect.

With the new Solutions pack, Phil Dalton has also taken hollowcore usage to a new level of practicality with research of determine exactly what customers, existing or new, need in terms of fittings for construction of dp-lite® panel-based furniture. Decorative Panels has been working with a number of fittings suppliers including giants of the industry life Hafele, Hettich and Titus.

Panel connectors are perhaps the most essential and now readily available fitting, whether for dp-lite® to dp-lite® or for dp-lite® to chipboard panels. The cam and dowel style of fixing works well in conjunction with 5mm Euro screws and the same dimension screw fixings is also ideal for use with a wide range of other fittings up to and including hinges and drawer runners.

The tight-threaded Varianta screws of Hafele's own design and manufacture work particularly well at this level, according to Phil Dalton. In addition to hinges and drawer slides, shelf pegs, glass shelf supports, back-fixing brackets and even hanging rails - all can be securely fixed into the 5mm MDF skins of dp-lite® using Varianta screws.

For high tear-out strength applications - including table legs, for example - Hettich's Hettinject dowel system allows for screws to be securely fixed into the hollowcore skins and generates a tear-out strength superior to any that can be achieved by conventional means with chipboard. Test data is detailed in Decorative Panels' new Solutions pack.

The much lighter weight of dp-lite® - around 60% lighter than conventional chipboard - makes it a natural for high profile applications such as fascias on sliding door systems, for example, or for movable partitioning and shelving systems. Since the product is also available with a raw sanded MDF finish, users have the option of painting themselves or laminating using CPLs, high pressure laminates or real wood veneers.

It all adds up to a new way of thinking for panel products and their many uses. Dp-lite® Solutions pack is now available for download here.

Photos from the 2008 ZOW Furniture components trade fair in Bad Salzuflen, Germany.

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Decorative Panels moved their head office to Century House, a newly bespoke designed and built HQ on Lowfield Business Park at Elland, on the Halifax Road two miles out of Huddersfield, on November 27th 2006. The new building will house both the Group Administration staff and the sales team of the Lamination Division - five years ago the rapidly expanding Group commissioned a new 100,000 sq ft foil lamination factory on the same site.

The new HQ has been called Century House to commemorate the establishment in 1907 of the business from which Europe’s largest trade lamination Group has grown. The lamination factory was itself extended by a further 40,000 sq ft this summer to accommodate a brand new production line, details of which are to be released soon.

The 10,000 sq ft floor area of Century House is arranged on three floors and will now be home to key management elements of the Decorative Panels Group, including accounting functions - all telephone and fax numbers remain unchanged. A new lamination materials, prints and finishes showroom is also currently under construction at Century House.

The existing Crosland Road site is to become the headquarters of Decorative Panels’ foil laminated Components Division under the overall management of DP Components Managing Director Malcolm Forward. The existing showroom of Group products that is on that site is to be redesigned and fitted to display components-related activities and will re-open in March of 2007.

Stephen Cadwell, now Sales Director at Decorative Panels Lamination Ltd., will head up the Group’s core foil lamination business from the new Century House HQ. “I am sure I speak for all management at Decorative Panels when I say how good it feels to bring the main activities of the group together on this superb site, which is constructed and fitted to such dedicated high standards and is therefore so eminently well equipped to maintain our market leading position into 2007 - and on into the future.”

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Decorative Panels’ creative chief Julian Tatham has come up with a new collection of four foils which, he says, “look magn ificent in contemporary settings, whether in the domestic environment or the modern workplace.”

Each of the four designs tone with, or complement, PVC foils by key manufacturers and have the added advantage of availability in Ultra form – with Decorative Panels’ own high specification lacquer finish. Ultra brings the application range of these new foils within the FIRA 6250 Severe and BS 6222 pt.3 surface spectrum for high traffic applications including worktops.

Three woodgrains are straight grained ‘moderns’ that will bring a dash of lavish style to the contemporary office environment and will look equally at home in traditional or period settings; Mocha is the complementary unicolour.

Ferrara Oak, a distinctly modern straight grained oak, introduces some useful straight lines for interior designers and Cherry Morgana, a tobacco coloured and gently structured cherry, has a slightly more traditional feel. Rich, warm and colourful Wisconsin Walnut meets the current and very well defined trend towards American hardwoods, walnuts in particular, and will look good across a range of more up market settings, both commercial and domestic.

The new sampling lab at Decorative Panels is now fully functional and can supply visual samples in the form of of laminated card swatches and also actual board samples laminated on a range of substrate materials.

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The panel components division of Decorative Panels have commissioned a new combination edgebander by IDM for increased capacity of edge finished panels to a wide range of specifications. DP Components managing director Malcolm Forward is delighted with the new machine which, he says, has raised output to around 25,000 panels per week - and forced him to consider alternative packing technology !

“We commissioned this new IDM Activa SB combination in June,” he says, “primarily or work on our own kitchen doors but also for general panel contract work. Already it has taken over the shop floor at the Crosland Road factory – it’s so fast and so versatile that it will handle just about any decorative edging material from 0.4mm to 3mm which makes it ideal for kitchen carcase work as well as for fascias.”

IDM Activa is built for precision and for speed and the feed mechanism can be operated both manually and automatically to integrate large volume panel runs with smaller batches of non-standard sizes and thicknesses. Incoming panels are squared in both dimensions prior to edgebanding - even narrow rails down to only 90mm in width can be squared and edge finished to high standards of quality.

The belt driven tracking of IDM’s Activa is powered by a two speed rack and pinion that accelerates individual panels between the processing stations, then slows them for squaring, edgebanding and finishing. The sintered mesh construction of the drive track is precision ground and automatically lubricated for long term reliability.

Foil laminates and MFCs finished to either or both faces are trimmed chip-free by contra rotating cutters and pre-milling spindles can also be introduced to optimally finish edges prior to banding. A  grooving unit is installed to cut blind or through slots to either panel face and an anti-adhesive station pre-coats panel faces flush with the the edges prior to banding with an adhesive-proof liquid that eliminates contamination.

Rounding units are installed for post or soft-forming of panels and edge scrapers for plastic edge finishing or glue scrapers can be deployed in the interests of overall edgebanding quality.  Fine sanding and edge buffing guarantees a perfect finish and restores the gloss to plastic edgings and an edge brightening unit revives the colour of ABS plastic materials dulled by other machining processes.

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Malcolm Forward, managing director of Decorative Panels’ Components Division, reports that a newly commissioned vertical machining centre by REM is underpinning big versatility gains for the sub contract panel processing capability at his Crosland Road HQ site.

“As well as giving us greater range in drilling and routering panels, including our own framed doors that have been already assembled down at the Milnsbridge factory, the new REM installation also brings significant speed, and therefore cost, benefits,” he says. “A single operator can work away on small - or large - batches unaided because the machine returns all panels to the point of input fully automatically.”

The REM is a high speed point to point system that machines for construction fittings, or for hinges and hardware - such as for cabinet fascias, and reduces manpower demands to a single operator. Smaller panels are cross transferred fully automatically after machining to a return track on the opposite side of the machine to free up the tools and take the panels straight back to the operator, maintaining the throughfeed status of the system.

The throughfeed capability is maintained even on full height 1200mm doors and end panels too long for the cross transfer unit by auto reversing the infeed tracking when maching is complete, achieveing the same ‘return to sender’ functionality. Operating sequences are all software programmable and easily input at the control panel of the machine, or they can be pre-programmed from a remote office.

Remote programming gives the machine operator more time to deal with the introduction, take off and stacking of large numbers of smaller components. However, smaller numbers of big panels can also be be easily programmed at the control panel of the machine and throughfed via a different input and reverse route to accommodate even singles or ‘specials’ and allowing more time for the machining sequences.

“We process a lot of awkward doors and end panels for some of our bigger cabinet systems manufacturing customers (like Symphony ?) because the machining of them causes bottlenecks on their own shop floors,” Malcolm Forward adds. “But this is exactly the type of work we’ve always targeted – and now, with the new REM, we’re even better geared up for it !”

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