Veneers
There is nothing quite like the deep gloss of a natural
wood veneer to confirm the Azure’s cosseted cabin
sensation of undiluted elegance.
Every veneer leaf is just 0.6mm thick.
In the two weeks that it takes to prepare the wood
for your Arnage interior, the veneers are given five
coats of lacquer and three days of curing time before
being wax polished by hand. The wood shop uses no bleaching
or staining techniques; the rich colour of the veneers
is entirely natural. It can take as many as 24 leaves
of veneer to make the main veneered components of a
Bentley cabin. Precision technology and traditional
craft skills combine to produce a perfect finish.
Bentley is the only coachbuilder to use mirror patterns
when applying veneers, placing four successive leaves
end to end to make a symmetrical pattern across the
fascia, a process known as book matching.
Each leaf of veneer can be traced back to the tree
from which it came. The most popular choice is Burr
Walnut, the distinctive pattern coming from a fungus
in the root ball. These root balls, generally around
1 metre in diameter, would typically be over eighty
years old. Each tree used for veneer is past its fruit-bearing
age and is replaced with three more. Great care is
taken never to use endangered wood species.
Leather Hides
There are 21 colours in the standard range of leather
hides available for the Azure, although the Bentley
trim-shop can match hide to almost any colour you choose.
It takes more than a dozen separate
hides to create the luxurious leather surrounds of the
Azure interior cabin. To avoid any variation in texture
between the different hides, they are selected and cut
at the same time after being minutely inspected for imperfections.
Even something as slight as a scratch or an insect bite
will cause a hide to be rejected, which is why our hides
are selected from herds in Northern Europe, renowned
for their remarkable lack of imperfections.
Steering wheels are double-stitched by hand using one
continuous piece of thread. Far too complicated
to be done by a machine, this hand-stitching process
takes as many as 15 hours work to create one steering
wheel cover. Every machinist who creates a finished piece
of upholstery signs it on the back with his or her initials. |
