Repair method for textured and/or smooth steel surfaces on endless strips or pressing sheets

#The invention relates to a method for touching up and/or repairing minor surface damage in a large-format pressing plate or an endless strip made of steel sheet, with a textured surface, for surface embossing of wood materials or laminate panels, the damaged surface being subjected to microgalvanic treatment.

#In the production of furniture, for example kitchen furniture, textured surfaces are required which have an appealing appearance, on the one hand, and are easy to take care of, on the other hand. For this purpose, plastic-coated wood material panels or laminate panels are used, which are given an embossed texture on their surface, embossing of such a texture being carried out using large-format pressing sheets or endless strips. For the aforementioned reasons, the pressing sheets and/or endless strips are therefore subject to very great stress, and it can happen, again and again, that hard inclusions are present in the wood material or laminate, for example, which easily damage the pressing sheets or endless strips at their surface.

#The finished pressing sheets are installed in a pressing device with which the plastic-coated furniture panels or the like are produced. For this purpose, endless strips that run in a circular motion are used, for example, which allow continuous production, the pressed goods being pressed into panels between the endless strips, and the surface being textured. For this purpose, the endless strips and/or pressing plates have the aforementioned surface texture, which is embossed into the pressed laminate. Any surface damage that is present is embossed into the pressed laminate, so that the panels that are produced, which might be partly damaged, cannot be used for further production. For this reason, it is particularly important that the pressing sheets and/or endless strips that are used have absolutely perfect surfaces, in order to keep any scrap as low as possible. However, it cannot always be avoided that minor surface damage occurs in the production of pressing plates and/or endless strips, or during their use in the pressing plant, for example cracks, indentations, bubbles or the like. Surface damage of this type is generally very small, with a damage area of 1 to 14 mm2,and it can occur in the steel sheet itself, in the textured metal coating, in the hard chromium layer, or possibly in all the layers.

#1. Microgalvanization device 2. Damage location 3. Endless strip 4. Surface 5. Texture 6. Mask 7. Mask 8. Electrolyte 9. Tamponade electrode