Patent ID: 7357959

Claim:
A method for printing a rigid component comprising a veneer having a solid natural wood outer surface that is mounted onto a base body, the method comprising: ink jet printing a plurality of differently-colored inks from a plurality of different nozzles onto said veneer according to a program configured to ink jet print a predetermined wood appearance comprising a predetermined wood grain pattern and a predetermined background color, wherein the plurality of colored inks and the veneer possess the following properties and the ink jet printing is performed such that: (i) the colored inks are absorbed by the veneer, (ii) edge regions of neighboring sprayed droplets of differently-colored inks flow into one another while being absorbed by the veneer, and (iii) after ink jet printing and absorption of the colored inks, the resulting visual appearance of the veneer is formed by a combination of the imprinted predetermined wood appearance and the natural appearance of the veneer, such that said resulting visual appearance of the imprinted veneer is different from both the predetermined wood appearance and the natural appearance of the veneer.