A transparent wood veneer, Alpilignum Radiant, has been developed by Italian firm Alpi. Calling it a breakthrough, Alpi says Radiant is a composite veneer that incorporates transparent plastic resin lines, allowing light to shine through and to disperse throughout.
You can browse the Alpi wood library for preferred patterns and colors, and also specify the number and pitch of the transparent lines, determining how much light will penetrate the wood veneer.
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The transparent lines lacing Radiant are made of polycarbonate, which transmits light a bit like fiber optic cable. The company says its production process makes the wood translucent.
A wide range of Alpi's veneer library can be converted through the process. The material won an award at interzum 2015 this week, the big wood industry hardware, lumber and panel trade show in Cologne, Germany this week.
ALPIlignum says it reconstitutes its regular veneers according to a special production process: wood is peeled off controlled-origin species logs, dyed by immersion in non-toxic dyes, and then "reconstituted" by overlapping the dyed sheets to form a new "uniform" log. This is then thinly sliced into veneer.
Alpi says its processes make the Alpilignum light-fast and with extremely low formaldehyde emissions.
Advantages of reconstituted veneer include the absence of defects found in traditionally produced wood veneer, with predictable, homogeneous color and grain, and reproducibility of colors and sizes.
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