Formica laminate is a brand of composite materials manufactured by New
Zealand-based Formica Group. The material was invented in 1912, and is
manufactured for a variety of applications today. In common use, the
word Formica refers to the company's classic product, a heat-resistant,
wipe-clean, plastic laminate of paper or fabric with melamine resin.
Formica Group, a division of the New Zealand company Fletcher Building,
consists of Formica Canada, Inc., Formica Corporation, Formica de Mexico
S.A. de C.V., Formica IKI Oy, Formica Limited, Formica S.A., Formica S.A.S.,
Formica Taiwan Corporation, Formica Co., Ltd., and Formica Ltd., among others.
Invention Formica laminate was invented in 1912 by
Daniel J. O'Conor and Herbert A. Faber, while working at Westinghouse. They
filed for a patent on it on 1 February 1913. They originally conceived it as a
substitute for mica used as electrical insulation, made of wrapped woven fabric
coated with Bakelite thermosetting resin, then slit lengthwise, flattened,
and cured in a press. They left Westinghouse immediately afterwards.
Formica laminate now refers primarily to the decorative product composed of
several layers of kraft paper impregnated with melamine thermosetting
resin and topped with a decorative layer protected by melamine, then compressed
and cured with heat to make a hard, durable surface.
Etymology of the name The mineral mica was commonly used at
that time for electrical insulation. Because the new product acted as a
substitute “for mica”, Faber used the name “Formica” as a trademark
History O’Conor and Faber quit Westinghouse to
start their own business, enlisting lawyer and banker John G. Tomlin as an
investor. Tomlin put up $7,500 and became a silent partner in the fledgling
business. The company began operations on 2 May 1913, and was immediately
successful: by September, Formica Products Company had eighteen employees
trying to keep up with the demand for electrical parts for Bell Electric
Motor, Ideal Electric and Northwest Electric.
After the General Bakelite Company chose to sell resin for sheet insulation only
to Westinghouse, they switched to a similar competitive phenolic resin,
Redmanol. After patent litigation favorable to Baekeland in 1922, the
Redmanol Chemical Products Company was merged with the General Bakelite
Company, and the Condensite Company to form The Bakelite Corporation.
An important application devised in the 1920s was the use of phenolic-laminated
fabric for gears; cut on conventional hobbing machines, the gears were tough
and quiet, which was important for automotive timing gears. By 1932,
Formica Insulation Company was producing 6,000 gear blanks a day for Chevrolet
and other car makers. In 1927, Formica Insulation Company
obtained a patent on an opaque barrier sheet that allowed the use of
rotogravure printing to make wood-grained or marble-surfaced
laminate, the first of many innovations that were to associate the name
"Formica" with decorative interior products.
In 1938 melamine thermosetting resin was developed by American Cyanamid Company.
It resisted heat, abrasion and moisture better than phenolic or urea resins and
could be used to make more colors; soon after, the Formica Corporation was
buying the entire output of melamine from American Cyanamid.
During World War II it manufactured "Pregwood" plastic-impregnated wooden
aeroplane propellers and bomb parts. Post-war, engineering uses declined,
ceasing in 1970 in favor of decorative laminates.
The company was headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, for many years. After
WWII, it entered the European market through a license agreement.
Acquisitions In 1956 American Cyanamid acquired
Formica Corp. The principal reason was to have a captive buyer for melamine, as
Cyanamid was one of the largest producers. However, this was soon
thwarted due to an anti-trust action by the US Department of Justice. Through a
settlement agreement, Formica Corp. was required to buy a significant share of
its melamine needs from competing producers.
Cyanamid operated Formica Corp. as a fully consolidated subsidiary, rather
than as an operating division, allowing it to retain the term "Formica" as a
corporate name. This gave added protection to the trademark, helping to
protect the word from becoming generic—which had been tried by many
competitors, against whom Cyanamid gained legal injunctions—to protect this
valuable trademark name. Dan O'Conor, son of the inventor,
continued as president of Formica Corp. after the acquisition, and was widely
regarded as the next Chairman of American Cyanamid. However, he was
thrown from his horse during a steeplechase event, suffering a broken
neck and becoming quadriplegic, ending his business career and, many executives
felt, preventing Cyanamid from achieving the growth and profitability it might
have. After a 1984 management buyout from
American Cyanamid, Formica diversified with products such as solid surfacing,
metal laminates and flooring materials. Since 2007 it has been a subsidiary of
the Fletcher Building group, which purchased it from private equity
investors Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. and Oaktree Capital Management,
LLC. Product evolution
Decorative laminates were made by impregnating large sheets of kraft paper
with phenolic resin, which was then partially cured and cut to sheet lengths
at the oven exit. The dry treated sheets were stiff and somewhat brittle. A
decorative sheet, impregnated with melamine resin and B-staged and cut to
length in a similar manner to the phenolic core sheets, was laid on a
polished stainless steel press plate. Then several plies or layers of kraft
paper impregnated with a phenolic resin were placed on top of the decorative
layer. The number of plies of kraft used yielded products of varying thickness
depending upon end-use requirements. Next, a sheet of release paper that
would not bond to the phenolic resin was placed on top of the phenolic kraft and
following this a mirror image build-up of the assembly already on the press
plate. Finally, another polished stainless steel press plate was placed
on top of the pack assembly. On the other side of this plate another similar
assembly was built until there were several laminates in one press pack to
go into a single opening in the hydraulic press. The huge hydraulic
presses, perhaps 5 feet by 12 feet, had many heated openings thus many laminates
could be produced in a single press cycle of about one hour duration. Great
pressure were applied to each press pack. The B-staged melamine and phenolic
resins first flowed to bond the interlaminar plies together, then the
plastic resins thermoset to provide a very durable product that could tolerate
much heat and abrasion. A variant was to use a slightly
roughened steel sheet atop the cover sheet, producing a laminate with a matte
surface. A similar effect can be achieved using various types of release
paper between the steel press plate and the decorative melamine surface.Some
users considered this more attractive than the gleaming, absolutely flat
surface created by the highly polished stainless steel separators. After being
removed from the press, the individual laminates were sanded on the phenolic
kraft side to a uniform thickness. This sanding operation also increased the
back surface area so the more secure bonding to a substrate such as a kitchen
counter could be achieved. This lamination process was costly and
labor-intensive. It required extensive handling of the individual sheets. Those
sheets were more brittle than potato chips, hence easily damaged. Breaking
off even a small corner rendered the sheet unusable. Yet no better process
had been devised, since the inception of the product. After a meeting of the
parent corporation's Research Coordinating Committee, Cyanamid's
Director of Corporate Development and Planning, Mr. Kent L. Aldershof,
suggested a new approach to Formica's Research Director, Dr. Arthur Giddings.
The proposal was to bypass the entire process of making paper and impregnating
individual sheets, to be subsequently laminated. Instead, Aldershof proposed
making a thick paste of cellulose powder and phenolic resin, to form the core in
a single piece prior to curing. The melamine-impregnated cover sheets would
be laid atop that, in forming the press packs.
This approach was pursued in the Formica research laboratory, with some success.
Thereafter, Formica decorative surfacing was produced with what was termed Corex
Core. The product was never commercialized for two reasons. First
the expected economics were not there. It was found that the only suitable
source of cellulose fiber came from sheets of kraft paper that had already
been made and were then ground up and the resultant laminate had different
physical properties. Secondly. laminates traditionally made from plies of paper
have different length and cross physical properties and the industry grew and
developed based on rectangular laminates so cross-plying was not possible. The
Corex core provided uniform cross and length properties which while seeming to
be an advantage was not because of the way the entire industry of laminate
application had developed to account for the non-symmetrical property.
A further advantage may have been that the core material could be impregnated
with a pigment, approximately matching the color of the top sheet that would
later be applied. The phenolic resin turned very dark brown during curing, so
that a narrow brown line would show when the material was later used in a
countertop. Pigmented Unified Core would provided an edge largely
indistinguishable from the surface color, giving a more pleasing overall
appearance to the product. Since the Corex product could not be
commercialized for the reasons described above, a more conventional method was
developed to make the product called Colorcore that provided uniform color
throughout the laminate and eliminated the brown line.
An interesting variant of the product was also developed, known as
Deep-Textured Formica Surfacing. Use of the cellulosic paste allowed using a
deeply textured, or even sculptured, metal press sheet atop the decorative
sheet, producing a formed surface. The researchers overlaid the stainless steel
sheets with furnace cement, a material easily sculptured or textured, and able
to withstand the high heat during curing. They would carve into this
cement an illustration, such as natural slate in negative form. When the furnace
cement hardened, and the sheet was used in a press pack, the final Unified Core
product would have a raised or three-dimensional image.
It was thought that such an approach would lead to producing large panels,
usable for example as wall decor in a hotel lobby or corporate office. In a
further development, the researchers used very thin copper sheets in place of
the decorative sheet. The overall effect was like a large metal medallion, or a
copper sculpture. Many impressive samples emerged from the research lab.
The product simulating natural slate proved to be a very popular product and
was a leading seller for many years. A decorative edge known as "Ideal Edge"
was originally invented by John W. Pehr and then bought by Formica Corp. All
rights to the product now belong to the "Diller Corporation", or Formica.
Relatives Arborite, a similar and also popular
paper-melamine composite, was developed in Canada in the 1940s.
Micarta, trade name for Westinghouse decorative laminates, now produced by
Norplex-Micarta A line of laminates similar to Formica
is made by Wilsonart International, Temple, Texas.
Laminates similar to Formica, but with top surface made of multilaminar veneer
and sprayed with resin are called Alpikord, is made by Alpi SpA .
Consoweld similar twentieth century product manufactured by Consolidated
Paper of Wisconsin. See also
Melamine References
External links Official website