Customer Story: How REVLAR Saved Ricci Lumber From Lamination

Since 1956, Portsmouth-based Ricci Lumber has been a leading provider of lumber, building supplies, and design services for southeastern New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts. They provide everything you need to build a home, including detailed designs for the kitchen of your dreams.

For years, Ricci Lumber's design team would generate these multi-page plans, then laminate each sheet of paper to ensure the plans would stand up to the harsh construction environment. That is, until they discovered REVLAR durable synthetic paper.

Why Synthetic Paper is Right for Construction Sites

When The Design Center at Ricci Lumber starts out designing a house, they leave the kitchen plans fairly generic so that the room can be designed to the customer's exact specifications.

As construction begins and the kitchen design is finalized, Ricci Lumber produces a new, more detailed set of plans that is posted in the kitchen space of the home so that each and every person working on the construction understands the designer’s intentions and can confirm the accuracy of their work.

Now construction sites are often dusty and open to the elements. Plans are frequently pulled from the wall to be inspected more closely or to make room for sheetrock or wall coverings. It isn’t unusual for them to be stepped on, spilled on, or even nailed through, so it's necessary that these plans be durable.

Ricci Lumber's design team took the time to laminate each page of a new set of plans to make sure they could hold up on the construction site. It was a time-consuming and labor intensive process that typically required an hour or more per plan.

Durable Synthetic Paper REVLAR to the Rescue!

When a recent customer asked Jeanne Hayes, manager of The Design Center at Ricci Lumber, why they didn't simply print the plans on synthetic paper, Hayes was intrigued. She had never heard about this special type of paper, so the customer offered samples of REVLAR durable synthetic paper for her to try.

Hayes put the synthetic paper to the test. She made sure it would be compatible with the company printer and verified that the printing was legible and resisted smearing. She even tested the samples to see if the paper was really waterproof, tear proof, and stain resistant.

The synthetic paper passed all her tests with flying colors and pretty soon, Ricci Lumber's design team was printing all their designs on synthetic paper.

“Our laminator is officially retired," Hayes said. "All our design plans are now printed on REVLAR, which means they’re extremely durable and still very easy to read."

The REVLAR synthetic paper was also available in the exact sizes Ricci Lumber needed, Hayes said, and was compatible with the printers already in use, so the company didn't need to invest in any special equipment to use it.

"These are all a major benefits, but an even more important advantage is the fact that with REVLAR, we no longer have to spend hours laminating plans,” Hayes said.