INDEX: Formica Display Merchandising Fixtures

INDEX:
Formica Display Merchandising Fixtures

Formica DecoMetal Samples Slatwall Standoffs

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This Formica Display Merchandising Fixtures index page aggregates links
to all post and photos of retail merchandising, display, and outfitting
as well as deep Background courtesy of Wikipedia.

BACKSTORY: Formica is a laminated composite material invented at the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in the United States in 1912. Originally used to replace mica in electrical applications, it has since been manufactured for a variety of applications. The product is today produced by New Zealand-based Formica Group since 2007. The word Formica refers to the company’s classic product: a heat-resistant, wipe-clean laminate of paper or textile with melamine resin.

Today, the product name Formica refers primarily to the decorative product composed of several layers of kraft paper impregnated with melamine thermosetting resin, or a unified core, and topped with a decorative layer protected by melamine, then compressed and cured with heat to make a hard, durable surface.

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 (Thailand) Co., Ltd., and Formica (Asia) Ltd., among others.

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^[1] as a trademark. The word already existed as the scientific name for wood ants, from which formic acid and the derivative formaldehyde compound used in the resin were first isolated.

Formica laminate was invented in 1912 by Daniel J. O’Conor and Herbert A. Faber, while they were working at Westinghouse, resulting in a patent filing on 1 February 1913.^[1]^[2] U.S. Patent No. 1,284,432 was granted on 12 November 1918.^[3] O’Conor and Faber 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.

Immediately afterwards, O’Conor and Faber left Westinghouse to establish a business based on the product, enlisting lawyer and banker John G. Tomlin as an investor. Tomlin provided $7,500 capital as a silent business partner. The company began operations on 2 May 1913, and was immediately successful: by September, Formica Products Company employed eighteen people trying to fill the demand for electrical parts for Bell Electric Motor, Ideal Electric, and Northwest Electric.

After the General Bakelite Company decided to sell resin for sheet insulation only to Westinghouse, allowing the Formica company other shapes with smaller markets, 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 (founded by Baekeland in 1910) and the Condensite Company (founded by J. W. Aylesworth) to form The Bakelite Corporation.^[4]

An important application devised in the 1920s was the use of phenolic laminate fabric for gears; cut on conventional hobbing machines, the gears were tough and quiet, which was important for automotive timing gears. By 1932, the Formica Insulation Company was producing 6,000 gear blanks per 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.^[5]

The company was headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, for many years. After WWII, it entered the European market through a license agreement.

In 2007, Fletcher Building group purchased Formica Corp. from private equity investors Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. and Oaktree Capital Management, LLC for $700 million.^[10]^[11] In 2018, Fletcher Building announced plans to sell Formica to Broadview Holdings (parent of Trespa) for NZD $1.226 billion (US$840 m);^[12] the sale was finalised the following year.^[13] (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

BACKSTORY: Lamination is the technique/process of manufacturing a material in multiple layers, so that the composite materialachieves improved strength, stability, sound insulation, appearance, or other properties from the use of the differing materials, such as plastic. A laminate is a layered object or material assembled using heat, pressure, welding, or adhesives.^[1] Various coating machines, machine presses and calendering equipment are used.

There are different lamination processes, depending primarily on the type or types of materials to be laminated. The materials used in laminates can be identical or different, depending on the object to be laminated, the process and the desired properties. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

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