Barberan presented in Hannover cutting-edge technology in their machines, showing that the brand is absolutely ready for present and future trends in the wood industry.

The Ligna Show is probably the most important event of 2011, not only for Barberan, but also for many other woodworking machinery manufacturers. This year, the number of visitors has been increased significantly, compared with the latest edition held in 2009.  Barberan participated with a stand of 1000 m2, where a total of 21 exhibition machines and installations for coating, wrapping, laminating and digital printing were on display.

One of the present trends in the furniture industry of these recent years is the use of high gloss materials, mainly in the production of kitchen furniture, but also other kinds of furniture and components. Barberan’s booth included a large display of kitchen doors produced by application and finishing machinery, specially adapted for its use with such materials. 

One of the processes that has aroused more interest was the high gloss finishing on melamine boards. This completely new process, patent pending by Barberan, uses the product HotCoating from the german adhesive manufacturer Kleiberit, which allows to apply this product directly on the melamine surface without the need to apply primer first. The HotCoating presents exceptional adhesion properties, providing an excellent strength at the same time. The process is interesting, not only for melamine surfaces on MDF boards, but also melamine laminated particleboard panels. For this kind of finishing, Barberan has developed a specific roller coater that achieves, with a single application, the finish quality that is so far only possible when spraying guns or lacquer curtains are used. The roller application system is smaller, saves more than 50% coating product, as far 100% solid content lacquers are used, and involves a much more efficient and solvent-free application. Different line configurations are possible but always depending on production requirements. Starting from the application of UV top coat directly on the HotCoating up to the combination of HotCoating, UV base and top coat and sanding for a spectacular finish quality. The effectiveness of this process was duly tested on different application fields of the furniture and decoration industries where a melamine coated particleboard or MDF board was involved. This process solves the typical difficulties of this type of treatment, with a simple and compact line that improves the product properties, resistance and durability, above those results obtained with conventional UV systems. 

The machine SPEED PRESS-1000-AB, exhibited at the booth of Barberan, is one of those machines that were specially designed to apply high gloss decorative foil onto the upper face of the panel and postform one or both edges in the same pass. The panels enter the line with already profiled edges. Horizontal cleaning brushes and two lateral exhaust hood nylon clean the surface and the edges of the panel. A screen with IR lamps pre-heats the surface of the panel before entering the press area. At the top of the machine is placed the unwinding station with automatic guided foil to the press zone, passing through a special device for removing dust particles on both sides of the foil, a PUR glue applicator roller glues the surface and two narrow slot nozzle heads glue both sides. The panels are pre-heated before they enter the press zone, where two silicone rollers press the foil gainst the surface of the panel. After pressing the surface, a heating zone heats both sides of the foil to make the postforming easier. A silicone roller presses the flat surface of the panel again. The postforming area, equipped with rubber wheels, wraps both sides of the panel. At the end of the machine, a group of trimmer cuts the excess foil under the panel and a set of molleton rollers polish these areas for a better finish. The machine has a total length of 8 meters, it can handle sheets up to 0.8 mm in thickness and the working speed depends on the characteristics of each type of foil and glue.

As a complement to the postforming, Barberán also presented a line for sealing and sanding of particleboard sides, thus gaining the opportunity to be wrapped later with high quality results. The line consists of a UV putty application head with pump, a drying area with UV lamps, a hood and a sanding and brushing area.

In another large area of the booth was a gluing line on display for manufacturing honeycomb doors automatically. This line had the capacity to produce up to 3 doors per minute. The line was composed of a feeder, a system for handling / transfer / turning the skins, roller conveyors, a double-sided PUR glue spreader to glue and pressing calander at the outfeed. It included also a system for the detection of the door width at the infeed for the automatic adjustment of all parameters. 

In the gluing sector of the booth was displayed as well a line composed of a single-sided PUR hotmelt glue spreader, a calander machine with unwinding station, foil pre-cutting device and foil surplus cutter at both sides of the panel. 

A part of the stand was dedicated to the new digital printing branch, which had four printers of the BIJ series on display, each one with different characteristics, for printing on paper or PVC rolls to be used in profile wrapping, thick foil for edgebanding or directly on panels. Each of these machines was composed of two stations: an inkjet printing station and another one for the application and drying of UV lacquer - to protect the finish and providing the highest quality in the product.

The visitors had the opportunity to check the quality and speed of these printers, and even see how the printed coils were used in the Barberan wrapping machines placed in the same stand. These printers are suitable for both small and large productions. Apart from printing at a speed of 24 m / min with a quality of 360 dpi, these systems are highly flexible. They can print any image, digitized in the computer, on almost any support, being able to offer each customer  an unlimited customization of his product. Small productions are not a problem because the change from one design to another within the 8 memory banks is done quickly and simple. The image length available in the BIJ printer series is 4.6 meters per frame, equivalent to what it could offer an engraved roller with a diameter of 1,460 mm. Compared to conventional or analogue printing systems, in the digital printing are suppressed the long delivery delays in the manufacturing of engraved rollers and plates, the high cost of them, ink changes, machine cleaning and preparation times. The printing cost is really low, as usually ranges between 15 and 25 cents per sqm.

Also there were several wrapping lines to produce at speeds up to 120 m / min equipped with feeder, foil splicing device and profile cutting system. One of the wrapping machines included a foil pre-cutting system to separate the wrapped profiles at the outfeed. Another line was demonstrated wrapping door panels in vertical position.

The lamination sector was represented by a panel laminating machine Compact Line for the application of paper or PVC foil on MDF or chipboard panels, using PUR hot melt glues and a light and economic laminator, model KL-1400-FP, to laminate chipboard or MDF panels with paper or PVC foil using PVAc glue, applied on the foil by rollers or urea formaldehyde and hardener on the panel. 

The coating machine group, which were exposed by Barberan at this show, was composed of a printing machine with 3D effect, PMG-4 model, which prints on the board a wood grain design and another design, which comes up from the surface to give the piece a rough feel in sync with the lines previously applied grain, a lacquering line consisting of a roller coater BRB-600 with tilt table at the outfeed, a second roller coater BRB-600 and UV curing tunnel to dry the pieces with electronic control and energy saving function, pressurization and high efficiency filtration for high gloss finishes and finally a spraying robot B8, with two circuits and eight arms for assembling up to 16 guns with rotary spraying system and a new feature: the Push Pull System. With this system, the sprayed lacquer or stain arrives to all corners of the panel, thus eliminating those dead zones, which are often hard to reach in a conventional spraying machine.

In addition, Barberan had on display also a cutting machine for cutting wide paper or PVC foil rolls TF-1300 and a cutting saw for paper or CPL rolls, model TP1.