Dai Nippon Insatsu Kabushiki Kaisha

Kinji Matushima

Eisuke Arai

Kuniaki Kamei

Matsuo Hirakawa

A process for producing decorative sheets which comprises: forming a pattern on a paper for decorative use with an ink containing a vehicle resin; causing the vehicle resin in the pattern to harden on the paper; impregnating the entire paper for decorative use including the pattern with a thermosetting resin to form an impregnated paper wherein a film of still uncured thermosetting resin is formed over the pattern; assembling a laminated structure by so superposing the impregnated paper on a base material that the surface of the paper bearing the pattern will become the outer surface and further placing a planar shaping member on the paper; subjecting the laminated structure to heating and pressing thereby to cause the thermosetting resin at parts other than the pattern to cure, leaving the thermosetting resin on the pattern in still uncured state; and peeling off the planar shaping member, under heat and after the termination of the pressing, thereby to form concavities on and coincident with the pattern in the film of the thermosetting resin by removing the still uncured resin on the pattern due to adhesion of the uncured resin to the planar shaping member thus peeled-off, the vehicle resin in the ink having a releasability from the thermosetting resin, the ink containing a curing-inhibitor for the thermosetting resin. By this process a decorative sheet having a pattern of sharp concavities and convexities coincident with a design pattern containing parts such as vessels in a wood grain pattern can be produced. The decorative sheet thus produced has remarkably improved surface properties such as abrasion resistance and solvent resistance.

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Tokorozawa, Japan

Kinji Matushima