Looking back at high pressure laminates in the 90’s
In my experience locally in Australia I had noticed wood panels companies importing plywoods made from rainforest trees from Asian Countries destroying habitat for profit, supplying the plywoods to Firedoor manufacturers as door skins.
I’d say why not use a High Pressure Laminate?
The answer would be, this plywood from overseas is just so cheap you would not compete with it on price and we just have to lacquer the beautiful rainforest timber the laminate won’t look as good and they sell us the plywood in the door skin size we can buy 1000 sheets of 2130 x 915 3mm plywood, Laminates are 3.6 x 1.5 metre sheets.
Meanwhile in Europe the high quality, (HPL) High Pressure Laminate producers were improving the digital print technology so HPL was evolving to actually look better than the rainforest timber plywoods and veneers and they were supplying a door skin sheet size range.
So while the local Australian market was still using rainforest timbers for plywoods and veneers for entry doors, HPL High Pressure Laminate was big in Europe for Entry Doors and especially growing in the commercial market.
