Door skin, a method of etching a plate for forming a wood grain pattern in the door skin, and an etched plate formed therefrom

1. A method of etching a wood grain pattern into a plate, comprising the steps of:

capturing an image of a piece of wood having ticks and background tones;

creating from the image a line art image substantially of modified ticks;

creating from the image a background art image incorporating modified background tones;

rendering a master image from the line art image and the background art image;

creating a pattern transfer from the master image;

applying the pattern transfer to a metal plate; and

etching the metal plate according to the pattern transfer.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the steps of:

burning the piece of wood prior to capturing the image; and

wire brushing the piece of wood prior to capturing the image.

3. The method of claim 1 , including the step of processing the image by color separation prior to said creating step.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein said creating the line art image step includes the steps of:

increasing the size of the image;

increasing the resolution of the image; and

adjusting tick images to a desired spacing.

5. The method of claim 4 , including the step of assigning a width and depth to the tick images.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein lines are etched in the plate to a depth of between about 0.009 inches to about 0.013 inches, the etched lines corresponding to the tick images.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein said creating the background art image step includes the steps of:

combining the image with a screen having a predetermined resolution; and

converting the image combined with the screen to film.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the screen is a 133 line screen.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the etched metal plate includes textured portions corresponding to the background art image.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the textured portions are etched to a depth of between about 0.010 inches to about 0.013 inches.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the master image is a photo sensitized lithography plate.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein said etching includes the step of vapor honing to remove undercuts and smooth sharp edges.

13. The method of claim 1 , comprising the step of embossing a polymeric substrate with the etched metal plate to form a molded article having an exterior surface with a wood grain pattern.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the metal plate is clean steel.

15. The method of claim 1 , comprising the further step of applying a layer of chrome to the etched metal plate.

16. An embossing plate for forming a wood grain pattern into a composition material, comprising:

an etched metallic plate having lower portions lying on a first plane;

spaced ridges formed in said plate and extending outwardly from the first plane;

tonal portions formed in said plate and having a planar portion lying on a second plane and outwardly disposed from the first plane, and spaced depressions extending from the second plane to the first plane, said tonal portions defined by a pattern of spaced depressions in plan view and configured as a grid raised relative to the first plane, said tonal portions for forming channels in a composition material for retaining stain and thereby controlling wood tone.

17. The embossing plate of claim 16 , wherein said spaced ridges extending outwardly from the first plane from between about 0.003 inches to about 0.013 inches.

18. The embossing plate of claim 16 , wherein said spaced depressions are recessed from the second plane from between about 0.001 inches to about 0.003 inches.