The large-scale diffusion of planes and coatings for furnishings made of costly materials (granite, marble, etc.) is nowadays subjected to two major constraints: -the high material costs reduce the number of people that are able to purchase such arrangements; -the material weight makes some of their possible applications (for example door panels) de facto unfeasible.

Object of the present invention is solving the above prior-art problems, by providing a plane and/or coating for furnishings that has a small cost and a reduced weight, simultaneously showing a layer of costly material having an intrinsic commercial value that makes it thereby accessible to a wider public and that makes it keep an external precious appearance.

The above and other objects and advantages of the invention, as will appear from the following description, are obtained by a plane and/or coating for furnishings and a process for manufacturing it as claimed in Claims 1, and 10 and 11, respectively. Preferred embodiments and non-trivial variations of the present invention are claimed in the dependent Claims.

The present invention will be better described by some preferred embodiments thereof, given as a non-limiting example, with reference to the enclosed drawings, in which: -Figure 1 is a partial side sectional view of an embodiment of a plane and/or coating according to the present invention; -Figure 2 is a partial side sectional view of an alternative embodiment of a plane and/or coating according to the present invention.

With reference to the Figures, the plane and/or coating for furnishings of the present invention will be described as realised in a heavy costly material such as granite, but obviously any costly material for furnishings can be employed, like, as a non-limiting example, marble, steel, glass, ceramics, stone, recomposed materials or agglomerates made of marble, stone, granite, wood and the like.

With particular reference to Fig. 1, the plane and/or coating 1 for furnishings of the invention substantially comprises an external coating element 3 made of usually costly material, such as granite or marble, made as a box open on its greater side: Fig. 1 shows a partial view in whose upper side the external part of the coating element 3 can be seen, that is joined in 4 to a shorter side thereof, also oriented towards the outside.

In order to close the plane and/or coating 1 again into its panel-shape, a stopper element 5 is then provided that cooperates with the external coating element 5 to complete the external part of said plane and/or coating 1; when the stopper element 5 is not visible from the outside (such as for example when the plane is used as kitchen plane and the stopper element 5 is used as its bearing base), it can be made of non-costly material, for example wood, while if the stopper element 5 is visible (as shown in Fig. 2), such as for example in applications with panels, it can be made of the same costly material of the coating element 3.

Finally, in order to realise the internal filling of the plane and/or coating 1 and to guarantee a sealing and bonding functionality between the coating element 3 and the stopper element 5, at least one layer 7 of expanded foam is provided and is placed inside the plane and/or coating 1. Due to the injection, as will be described below, of the expanded foam (that in the preferred embodiment is composed of foamed polyurethane) and to its following controlled foaming, no other securing means for the plane and/or coating are provided, and the plane and/or coating exits the working process as a single, compact and resistant product, in which the external elements 3 and 5 are strongly kept together by the layer 7, realising, in addition to the intrinsic product lightness, a very high saving of costly materials of which the external element (s) 3 and 5 are composed.

The plane and/or coating 1 of the invention operates quite satisfactorily in the above- described embodiment or surface extensions that are 1 or 2 m2 wide. When instead the surfaces to be covered are greater, bending or buckling problems could occur next to the angular ends of the plane and/or coating 1 itself, due to the nature of the materials composing it. In order to solve such inconvenience, according to a further preferred embodiment of the invention, the plane and/or coating 1 is further equipped with at least one reinforcement element 9 buried inside the layer 7 of expanded foam next to the angular parts of the plane and/or coating 1 in order to reinforce them.

In the Figures, the reinforcement element 9 is composed of a L-or C-shaped aluminium section bar according to the applications, and it extends for the whole length of the plane and/or coating 1, but obviously a number of section bars can be provided at will whose extension is as well variable at will.

A product is thereby obtained that is composed of a thin layer 3 of material having an intrinsic commercial value whose advantage is that it is much more inexpensive as regards the traditional use thereof, and at the same time the derived composite lightness is exploited like a tool for a better manageability and capability of being handled.

Thus, there is a chance of making accessible, for a much wider number of people, materials (such as granite and marble) that so far were deemed as precious and therefore costly, taking into account the need of a product of this type in cases in which the weight variable is a primary factor of choice by the designer.

The process for manufacturing the plane and/or coating according to the present invention will now be described.

Such process substantially comprises the steps of: -providing an external coating element 3 in the shape and size of the end product; -placing the stopper element 5 inside the external coating element 3; -placing pressing means (not shown) above the external coating element 3 so that they get in contact with its shorter sides to prevent the further future foam expansion; -injecting expanded foam into the clearance between the external coating element 3 and the stopper element 5; -foaming the expanded foam till the stopper element 5 comes in contact with the pressing means that prevent its further outwards foaming: in this way, the foaming controlled by the pressing means makes the layer 7 of expanded foam placed between the external coating element 3 and the stopper element 5 operating as bonding agent between them.

When the insertion of a reinforcement element 9 is provided, it is connected inside the external coating element 3 next to those of its angular ends that have to be reinforced. Then, the stopper element 5 is placed inside the external coating element 3 and above the reinforcement element 9 and the following injection and foaming of the foam take the reinforcement element 9 itself to be buried inside the layer 7 of expanded foam when the end product is manufactured in its compact form.

The material of the coating element 3 is obviously worked"upstream"in a traditional way, through milling and flanging of the visible parts, while the following injection of the foamed polyurethane is performed through specific toolings (not shown) suitable for such purpose.

Some preferred embodiments of the invention have been described, but obviously they are prone to further modifications and variations within the same inventive idea. For example, the planes and/or coatings of the present invention can be used for any type of paneling or garnish, also not of the household type, or with less costly materials but with applications where the reduced weight obtained with the invention is particularly important.