About the Materials
At the heart of all our products is our unique combination of extensional damping materials; a combination of ApplePly birch plywood which is sandwiched between two layers of our ¼” thick reconstituted cork material.
Think of our cork material as a cross between cork and linoleum. It contains granulated cork, linseed oil, powdered pigments and resin binders. It is very dense as well as being extremely durable. The two outer layers of cork add considerable mass and form an attractive, durable, non-skid and self healing surface that gives slightly. These same attributes make it an excellent choice for extensional vibration damping. We offer it in several color choices, depending on the product.
The ApplePly is an American made product using birch inner plies (imported from Russian and Poland) with maple faces bonded with urea-formaldehyde free soy based adhesives. The ApplePly thickness varies depending on the product ranging from ¾” thick 13 ply in our isolation blocks all the way up to a massive 2” thick 36 ply in our thickest equipment platforms.
We chose ApplePly for several reasons. It is very dense while at the same time remaining very stiff and unbendable over time. Having multiple, crosshatched layers laminated together make it very good at dissipating vibrations even before the outer cork layers have been applied. Where materials like solid wood, glass and stone tend to ring ApplePly’s multiple layers make it an excellent choice for eliminating unwanted vibrations
When the ApplePly and the cork are combined there is a synergistic affect creating a very high mass, low resonance combination that stops vibrations cold.
Our equipment rack uprights are made from premium grade kiln dried hardwoods as are the edges of our Hardwood Edge series platforms.
Our Bamboo Edge Series platforms use premium Smith & Fong bamboo plywood, a sustainable product that is FSC and LEED certified.
