Wood Effect on Aluminium: How Sublimation Lines Work

Wood-look aluminium windows, doors and façade profiles are popular across the Middle East, North Africa and many other markets. Buyers get the look of timber with the durability and low maintenance of powder-coated aluminium. Most of these finishes are made by sublimation, also called heat transfer printing.

How sublimation works

1. Powder coat the base. The profile is powder coated and cured with a base colour suited to the pattern, for example a light beige for oak.
2. Wrap in transfer film. A film or paper printed with sublimation inks in the wood or stone pattern is wrapped around the profile.
3. Apply vacuum. The wrapped profile is sealed in a bag or placed on a membrane table, and vacuum presses the film tightly against every surface.
4. Heat to transfer. In the transfer oven, typically around 190–210 °C, the inks turn to gas and migrate into the powder coating.
5. Cool and remove film. The film is stripped away, leaving the pattern inside the coating rather than printed on top of it.

Because the pattern sits inside the coating, it resists abrasion much better than a printed surface layer. UV durability depends heavily on matching the base powder and inks.

What decides the quality of the finish

• Base powder formulated for sublimation, with the right colour and gloss.
• Even vacuum contact: gaps between film and profile show up as blurred or missing pattern.
• Temperature uniformity in the transfer oven, so the pattern has the same depth and colour along the whole length.
• Transfer time matched to the film and powder supplier's recommendation.
• Clean handling to avoid fingerprints, dust and creases in the film.

QUALIDECO is the quality label for decorative finishes, such as wood effect, on coated architectural aluminium. It covers both sublimation and powder-on-powder and works alongside QUALICOAT. It licenses the decorating plant and, for sublimation, the powder and film suppliers. Plants that sell certified wood-effect profiles build their process around its requirements.

Three ways to set up a wood effect line

1. Compact batch: US-2 batch sublimation

The US-2 system is designed for factories where floor space is expensive. Its footprint is about 11.0 × 6.7 × 3.7 m. It handles products up to 1.2 m wide × 6.5 m long × 200 mm high, with batch cycles of 8–20 minutes. Two working tables and a membrane table take doors, profiles and panels. It uses an SS310 heat exchanger, a Riello burner (gas, oil or LPG) and Siemens PLC control.

2. High volume: YM continuous sublimation

The YM continuous line automates loading, ultrasonic bagging, transport and buffering, constant-temperature transfer, cooling and bag release. A typical YM-2 layout produces about 360 bags per hour, and a YM-4 up to 720 bags per hour, for profiles up to 7,000 × 250 × 150 mm. It suits extrusion plants where wood effect is a core product rather than a side line.

3. Integrated: wood effect vertical line (QUALIDECO)

A wood effect vertical line combines powder-on-powder coating, brushing for texture, and sublimation transfer in one line. The base coat is half-cured and brushed to create surface grain, then the sublimation film is applied and transferred in a dedicated oven. The result is wood grain with both the look and the feel of timber.

Batch or continuous?

Ying Group's own materials company, DECO-ART, produces powder and transfer film. The equipment, base powder and film can therefore be matched from the start.