The first Core Base 18 sample board

On 5 June 2026 it was lying on the table: the first sample board of our blockboard Core Base 18. Around 18 millimetres thick, built from a 15-millimetre stave core of paulownia, faced on both sides with roughly 1.5 millimetres of rotary-cut beech veneer.

The special part is in the bond: the board is 100 percent bio-based, because the binding system is bio-based too — a protein-based, bio-based adhesive, free of formaldehyde and isocyanates. No fossil glue anywhere in the board.

Honestly: a prototype

Core Base 18 is not finished with this — it is real for the first time. A sample board proves that the construction works: a light paulownia core (in its raw state the wood weighs only around 270 to 290 kg/m³), stabilising beech veneer, bio-based bonding. What it does not yet prove are series production and reliable performance data. Strength, emissions and behaviour in everyday use now have to be tested systematically — by us and by an independent body.

For us, this board is more than a material sample. It is the showpiece of the CABITREE idea: a material whose origin and construction can be verified layer by layer.

Next up are further samples and the first test results. We will only call the board finished when the numbers support it.