It is known to make paneling and the like by applying a decorative veneer foil to one or both sides of a board formed of inexpensive plywood, chipboard, or the like. The finished product has considerable physical strength and the attractive appearance of the veneer foils that it carries on its outer face or faces. Although it was originally the practice to manually assemble the sandwich that was later pressed into the finished product, in modern times the process has been largely automated.
In a standard such machine, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,415,707 and its equivalent, German patent publication No. 1,703,981 filed Aug. 8, 1968 by D. Barnes, the system basically comprises upper and lower conveyors that vertically flank a central conveyor. The central conveyor feeds a board to an assembly location, and the upper and lower conveyors feed the foils also to this location so that the board becomes sandwiched between them at the assembly location. This arrangement is extremely complex and requires a great deal of sensitive process-monitoring equipment in order to form a sandwich with a central board and a pair of foils neatly flanking it. In fact the apparatus must normally be stretched out over a considerable horizontal length in the plant, so that the various equipment can ensure that the various parts of the sandwich are properly positioned before they arrive at the assembly location.
As such an arrangement is normally used with a heated press having a relatively fast cycling time, it is necessary that the system be able to produce the sandwiches ready for pressing at a rate at least equal to the cycling time of the press.
Devices are also known, as for example in U.S. Pat. No. 3,599,968 of Billett and West, to form a stack of foils, however such arrangements are not suitable for the manufacture of fine paneling and are also extremely bulky and complex.