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US 8,186,399 B2Granted
Automated floor board texturing cell and method
AssigneeUnilin Flooring NC LLC
InventorJohn C. Tappan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An automated floor board texturing cell includes a programmable robot that stores, or has access to, a plurality of patterns. The robot automatically selects a stored pattern for at least one of the floor boards introduced into the cell. The robot textures the floor boards to exhibit the selected pattern. The robot may select a pattern for a batch of floor boards or for each individual floor board. Pattern selection can be random or based on stored information such as a production schedule.
Claims14
A method comprising:
- introducing a floor board into a machining device, the floor board having
- a major surface of natural wood that is rectangular in shape, and
- a pair of long side surfaces provided with tongue and groove features for the side-to-side connection of two of such floor boards;
- selecting a texturing pattern from a plurality of stored texturing patterns;
- machining the selected texturing pattern into the major surface of the floor board, the texturing pattern including texture marks that extend in a longitudinal direction of the major surface, wherein the tongue and groove features are formed by a separate milling operation that is performed prior to machining the selected texturing pattern;
- and
- after the machining, applying at least one synthetic layer on top of the major surface, the synthetic layer being a lacquer filled with abrasion resistant particles, wherein the texture marks remain visible and palpable when the at least one synthetic layer has been applied.
4 more elements
A method comprising:
- introducing a floor board into a machining device, the floor board having
- a major surface of natural wood that is rectangular in shape, and
- a pair of long side surfaces provided with tongue and groove features for the side-to-side connection of two of such floor boards;
- selecting at least two texturing patterns from a plurality of stored texturing patterns;
- merging together the selected texturing patterns to create a new texturing pattern;
- machining the new texturing pattern into the major surface of the floor board, the new texturing pattern including texture marks that extend in a longitudinal direction of the major surface, wherein the tongue and groove features are formed by a separate milling operation that is performed prior to machining the selected texturing pattern;
- and
- after the machining, applying at least one synthetic layer on top of the major surface, the synthetic layer being a lacquer filled with abrasion resistant particles, wherein the texture marks remain visible and palpable when the at least one synthetic layer has been applied.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.