Dyed wood by Legnoquattro color makes the difference

Specialization in a high-quality processing “niche” like wood veneer dyeing – which can transform raw material without affecting its natural essence – is the key strength of Legnoquattro in Novedrate, near Como. The company has a “peculiar” history. Legnoquattro was born when TQuattro closed down, a wood dyeing company founded in 1973. In 1983 it was decided to close down business, a new organization for wood dyeing was created by a group of employees who teamed up and, investing their own severance pay, they established Legnoquattro: 21 business partners decided to carry on, including the historical president Angelo Trombetta and the current president Eugenio Grandinetti, who was then in charge for the dyeing operations together with Fernanda Colombo, still managing the test laboratory and current board members Sergio Furlan and Mario Codella.

Today, 11 founding partners still work in the company, a business that exports 60 percent of its production to Germany, Russia, China, the United States and India, from two production sites. The main site in Novedrate includes 5 thousand square meter indoor premises and a wood yard, plus a warehouse, sales offices, shipment logistics and offices. The second site is a 2 thousand square meter building in Birone di Giussano (Monza Brianza), acquired eight years ago. Same production of dyed wood, but two different working methods: in the historical site, the process is still based on a balance of handicraft skills and technology, while in Birone sophisticated dyeing technology was adopted from the beginning, implementing a process that uses vacuum containers, long proven in the fabric dyeing industry, which can handle large product volumes at lower cost, mainly shipped to foreign markets.

With approximately eighty employees, Legnoquattro processes 250 thousand square meters wood every month in 8-hour shifts, starting from a reference portfolio of about 2 thousand colors, which are gradually complemented by custom versions. The key target markets, besides furniture, are automotive (20 percent) and shipyards (20 percent); furniture for hotels and interior decorations are also growing. These sectors consider the visual impact of wood as an essential requirement, an added value compared to “modern” products like papers and melamine. The designer is the number one target for Legnoquattro, as explained by Eugenio Grandinetti.

 

Mr. Grandinetti, which are the benefits of wood dyeing?

“When we dye wood, we don’t destroy the nature of raw material, but rather enhance it:we provide customers with different colors from nature, while preserving the natural texture of wood and following design trends.With our dyeing process, we enhance quality wood that have flaws and would be scrapped:aniegrè, cherry, erable, ash, kotò, lauro faja, mahogany, figured movingui, american walnut, burl, oak and tulipwood.We can remove spots and flaws, and customize the material without destroying the grain, achieving a uniform material dyed across the entire veneer thickness, up to two millimeters.Once ready, our dyed wood is simply glued to the substrate, sanded and painted”.

 

How and where do you buy wood to be dyed?

“We purchase whole logs, which are then sliced, or we buy veneers directly.Wood comes in single packages of thirty veneer sheets, divided by type and quality.Each log, accurately selected by a skilled tester, is entirely used, both valuable parts and those with a poorer visual impact, in this way we can leverage all the material through dyeing.A big challenge in our job is the provisioning of quality material, especially for orders of a certain size.That’s why, from each log, we use the best parts for high-end products and the less beautiful ones for markets that do not request valuable wood, such as India.Wood mainly comes from the United States, Europe, Africa and Brazil, all from Fsc-certified forests.Sometimes, with very valuable and rare materials like burl, we dye the product that the customer buys himself”.

 

Do you address designers directly?

“Companies of significant dimensions and relevance come with a clear project and ask for a specific type of wood dyed in a specific color.Based on this project, we develop prototypes in our laboratory with samples of several square meters, in order to produce a surface of suitable size to check the final result.The test laboratory is equipped with a PC-based system and a spectrophotometer that allow to achieve the right shade and brightness of the final color, which is finally stored in our catalog to be repeatable.

Pilot plants in the laboratory produce color samples to scale, ready to be transferred to the mixing plant, and then to the processing tanks.The process begins only after we get the final approval from the customer”.

 

Which are the key process stages?

“Veneers are stored in the warehouse in numbered packages divided into three quality grades, from best to poor.The customer selects them personally based on their properties, natural flames and dimensions, then the actual machining process starts.The first stage is bleaching:not all wood sheets are submitted to this treatment, it depends on the presence of flaws and the final color result to be achieved.After initial trimming, the veneers are wetted, loaded into baskets and dipped into the bleaching tanks that contain hydrogen peroxide and sodium hydroxide (caustic soda).To eliminate all hydrogen peroxide residues, wood is treated with enzymes that consume the oxygen, then it is washed again.The next stage is a bath in the dyeing tanks, also inside baskets, with a color diluted in water containing acetic acid.Synthetic dyes, consisting of a red, blue and yellow mixture, are the same used for wood, silk and leather in the production of consumer goods, with no solvents added.Once removed from dyeing tanks, wood is taken to the drying tunnel, equipped with automatic loading onto belt conveyor.When it is perfectly dried, it is flattened in a steam press, and packaged for shipment.

The process is quite simple, but it requires great manual skills:sometimes veneer is very expensive, so if you fail, you waste money and raw material.Finally, we are very keen on the environmental impact of operations:the process water we use is purified in our plant and then in the factory next to us, we have closed an agreement with them.After a second purification cycle, waste water is discharged to the competent facility for another treatment”.

 

What’s your vision of the Italian market in this period, especially for furniture?

“Between 2008 and 2009 we fell from 13.5 to 7.5 million Euro turnover, this year we are around 8.Until 2008, the market was excellent, we worked with big furniture companies and in Novedrate alone with produced 140 thousand square meters for big companies; then the market crashed and became more fragmented and diversified, from big 30 thousand square meter orders in India to 500 square meters for small Italian craftsmen.

The difficult market situation mostly affected the Birone site, which we acquired almost ten years ago to handle booming dyed wood demand from India: as the demand of large volumes decreased, the factory had to lay off workers for temporary periods.In these years, we were forced to adapt cost reduction policies, also reducing the number of staff by avoiding to employ new workers to replace those who retired”.

 

And what are you expecting this year?

“We are approaching new markets:for instance, we have never worked in Turkey, a country with good growth rates and many companies interested in dyed wood, which have already sent orders.Further interesting markets are Korea and Brazil.To achieve this goal, we invest a lot in exhibitions abroad through our sales managers, including the board member Mauro Erba. Recently we have been to India and in September we are going to China. As to product, we are always looking for new and exotic wood.There are development prospects, because the furniture industry has changed and customers want color and bright environments, while preserving the 3D texture of wood”.