Product Innovation: Wood

Lure New Customers with a Real Wood Box of Sheer Veneer—Thin Sheet as Versatile as Paperboard

The visual impact of color printing on a real wood box, with real wood grain, is quite striking and alluring, and Sheer Veneer, Inc. wants to bring that experience to a store near you. Sheer Veneer Fine Wood Paper is the world's first wide-web real wood paper suitable for lamination to a wide range of substrates including paperboard, synthetics/non-wovens, foam board, and corrugated.

The applications for Sheer Veneer Fine Wood Paper are as limitless as traditional
paperboard˜but provide an unmeasurable visual and tactile consumer impact.

The tradition and beauty of wood add a tactile element to packaging, pressure sensitive labels, and point of sale, while offering an active design surface that co-mingles and directs the final feel of a graphic. Certainly it is a material to design for, as the grain of a wood species can add a powerful impact to the final brand message. And when the real wood sheets print and convert like paper, the possibilities start to multiply.

The founding partners did an exhaustive global search for potential spoiler companies or products—and they found nothing else like it. To hedge their bets, the partners aimed high, both in the quality of their product and the potential applications of their uniquely classy product. The unique machinery for peeling the continuous rolls is in northern Wisconsin, and Mike Brooks, partner at Sheer Veneer, hints at the type of clients that are beginning to sign on to the concept. "We targeted the luxury packaging market," Brooks says.

The core options for Sheer Veneer are the tight-grained hardwoods: Maple, Cherry, Aromatic Cedar, and Underwater Birch. The Underwater Birch is an interesting case, coming from original growth timber harvested at least 100 years ago. These logs sunk in the cold northern rivers and lakes on their way to the sawmill. Today, this birch offers companies a lost resource with extraordinary grain patterns and colors.

Sheer Veneer is produced by a proprietary method that peels the wood as thin as .006" from a hardwood log in a continuous roll, and most single rolls attain a lineal length of between 500'-700'. Multiple rolls can be butt-jointed together to make a longer roll. The material can be created in a web width as wide as 60". Once peeled, the wood is backed to any number of materials to support the wood and aid in the final application.

Since there are many unbelievers still out there, Sheer Veneer has had to prove the versatility of the product to potential users and converting companies—up front. "You have to prove that you fit into the existing market," Brooks explains. Now that key converting partners have proven that existing machinery can print, die cut, and fold the thin wood as easily as paperboard, the word should get around quickly. "The final execution, when this ties into a brand, that's what is going to be exciting," Brooks says. (Learn more at www.sheerveneer.com)