How Artificial Christmas Trees Are Made

Though artificial Christmas trees have been a part of our seasonal traditions for decades, most people don’t know how these holiday staples are made. Fake Christmas trees are manufactured with carefully constructed materials and precise processes along with essential chemicals for quality assurance.

What Are Fake Christmas Trees Made Of?

Artificial Christmas tree materials have gone through centuries of evolution. Early trees were made with dyed goose feathers, then toilet brush bristles, then aluminum and finally, PVC plastic — a material that has maintained popularity for fake Christmas trees from 1980 to today. PVC plastic trees are known for their realistic pine-needle look, fire-retardant properties and long life spans. 

Mold release agents are crucial to the manufacture of PVC plastic. These chemicals create a barrier between substrates and the molding surfaces that shape them, preventing the materials from fusing to the mold. Mold release agents in fake Christmas tree manufacturing ensure that the PVC molding process is successful, enabling the plastic to easily separate from its mold without sustaining damage.

How Artificial Christmas Trees Are Made

Now that you know what artificial trees are made of, you can learn how these materials come into play in the manufacturing process:

1. Framework construction: Workers create a steel skeleton by filtering rollers into a machine that bends the steel tubing into arcs, which form the base. They then weld vertical supports to the steel arcs.
2. Steel finish: Manufacturers use a polyester powder to deliver a smooth finish before baking the steel parts, allowing the coating to set.
3. Foundation assembly: An assembly team then joins the pieces together to build the tree’s foundation.
4. PVC shaping: A roller machine uses circular cutters to cut a roll of PVC plastic into 4-inch-wide strips, then shreds them to resemble tree needles held together by a center spine. An automated spool then coils the needle strings.
5. Wire twisting: The strips of fringed PVC and a length of brown PVC move through tension control guides, where steel wires are twisted through them. The brown strip filters through the core of the fringe twists, acting as the needle stem.
6. Strand cutting: A machine cuts through the artificial pine needle strands with large scissors to lengthen them accordingly.
7. Foliage crimping: Workers use a ring fastener to crimp the greenery together, which they then use to cover the tree’s framework.

Purchase Mold Release Agents for Fake Christmas Tree Manufacturing at W.N. Shaw

If you manufacture artificial Christmas trees, consider investing in a dependable mold release agent from W.N. Shaw. We’ve spent over 25 years expertly crafting high-quality molding agent solutions that are trusted across over a dozen major industries. Our team is dedicated to performance consistency, technical expertise and customer satisfaction.

Contact us for more information on our products today!