Embossed decorative sheet-type material and process for making same

Decorative sheet-type covering material having an embossed surface and comprising:

• a. a substrate;
• b. a pigmented, selectively partially crushed, foamed, plastic undercoat adhered to said substrate;
• and
• c. a foamed, plastic layer adhered to said undercoat and having selectively crushed transparent portions through which said pigmented undercoat is visible, the selectively crushed transparent portions of said foamed plastic layer being in register with the selectively partially crushed portions of said pigmented undercoat.

A process for making decorative sheet-type covering material having an embossed surface which comprises:

• a. forming a foamable undercoat of wet PVC plastisol or organosol containing blowing agent on a latex coated felt substrate, said foamable undercoat being pigmented and being between about 2 and about 20 mils thick;
• b. heating the undercoat formed in step (a) under temperature conditions sufficient to gel said undercoat without foaming same;
• c. applying a wet, nonpigmented layer of foamable PVC plastisol or organosol over the pigmented undercoat, said nonpigmented foamable plastisol or organosol being between about 4 and about 20 mils thick;
• d. heating the layer of step (c) sufficient to gel same without foaming either the layer of step (c) or the undercoat of step (a);
• e. applying printing to the gelled, nonpigmented, foamable layer;
• f. applying a wet wear layer of PVC plastisol or organosol to the printed and gelled, nonpigmented, foamable layer, said wear layer having a thickness between about 4 and about 20 mils;
• g. heating the sheet sufficiently to cure the wear layer and cure and foam the undercoat and nonpigmented, foamable layers;
• and
• h. selectively crushing portions of the sheet by mechanical embossing to form transparent portions of the nonpigmented, foamed layer, at least some of such transparent portions having a thickness less than the thickness of the layer of step (c) and to simultaneously partially crush portions of the nonpigmented, foamed layer.