Blanket Market Changes and Technology Development

Blanket is an essential intermediary for the printing press to contact the paper, transfer ink, and print. It plays a key role in accurately registering and copying. Its printability and service life are critical. For large rotary machines, the damage caused by the damage caused by the damage of the blanket may exceed the value of the blanket itself. The problem of quality and incompatibility of consumables in rotary printing is the root cause of the loss. It directly affects the profit and loss of the enterprise.

For this reason, foreign printers have a lot of expectations for rubber blankets in the rapid development of printing technology: hope that the blankets can print solid color blocks and network cable color maps, the paper has good peelability, and always maintains good flatness during printing. And stability, rapid rebound after stamping, easy to clean and so on. It is necessary to meet such a large number of requirements while also offering affordable prices.

International market demand for blankets

Today, foreign printers have higher requirements for printing blankets than ever before. The reasons for this include: the rapid development of CTP, the widespread use of UV inks and composite inks, and increasingly stringent environmental protection requirements for printing. Some experts believe that the development of CTP has brought about the popularization of FM networks, and digital plate making technology has largely eliminated the problems of plate registration errors and dust and dirt, and people have turned their attention away from the printing plate. To the blanket.

Since the network of the FM network is inherently small and the ink balance is slightly problematic, ink buildup occurs immediately, and therefore higher demands are placed on the blanket. John Kirtsey, sales manager at Reeves Brothers Inc. in the United States, pointed out: "The FM network is equivalent to 300 dpi accuracy. At this time, high-quality blankets must be used to prevent the expansion of outlets or the blurring of the edges of the outlets."

Reports from printing blanket manufacturers show that the demand for UV printing and special printing blankets has continued to increase recently. Scott Poyner, general manager of Phoenix North America Sales Co., Ltd., said: “The UV printing blankets are the best among Phoenix products.” Doug Rich, general manager of the blanket business at MacDermid Printing Solutions in the United States, also said that UV and glossing The printed blanket is the company’s two fastest growing areas. Axe l Thien, supplies manager of Heidelberg Printing Company in the United States, said that in the past they had been using other brands of blankets. Now the company is considering choosing a manufacturer to cooperate with Heidelberg's own brand of UV printing blankets.

Mr. Keyin Kennedy, the domestic sales manager of DYC Supply in the United States, explained: “Not to say that everyone has turned to UV printing, but because customers are seeking high-quality prints, UV printing has become more and more popular.”

UV printing brings great challenges to blanket manufacturers. In UV printing, the rubber component in the blanket must withstand the corrosion of chemicals, UV cleaners, and inks. Ordinary blankets cannot be used for UV printing, and ordinary inks cannot be used for UV blankets. However, many printing companies often perform common ink printing and UV printing on the same printing press. With the advent of composite inks, most blanket manufacturers begin to produce dual-use blankets. Taking Italy Reeves as an example, they have successfully developed a variety of compatible UV printing blankets, such as Vulcan COMBO, Vulcan UV, etc., which are well received by European users.

Environmental protection requirements are increasingly strict

Some printers are also under pressure from environmental protection, and they are ordered to reduce the concentration of volatile solvents in the air of the workshop. However, using other chemicals to clean the blanket and rubber roller is not ideal, but will leave hard residue on the surface of the blanket.

Perhaps most printers do not pay attention to this point. They only know what kind of blanket they can use, and then use it all the time. But blanket manufacturers are constantly improving their products to meet the needs of printing companies. Mr. Branson of Day In-ternational said: "If you see the speed and demand of today's presses, the old-fashioned blankets in the past are no longer competent."

New technology is the key

To keep up with the needs of the market, it is imperative to study new technologies. Major rubber blanket manufacturers abroad have already resorted to new tricks.

DuraZone is a new type of blanket compressible layer technology that has been invented by Day International of the United States. They first proposed a new theoretical model of the compressible layer and then maximized the effective components. This technology is said to give the user higher print quality and longer life of the blanket.

Beginning with the Graph Expo 2003, Day introduced new 5000 series blankets based on DuraZone technology. There are three initial products in this series: the Model 5000 is a surface-softened, heat-stabilized blanket for commercial rotary printing presses; the Model 5010 is also a blanket for heat-fixed commercial rotary printing presses, but with a Day-patented patented textured surface , Paper separation performance is good, the impact of paper roll breakage is greatly reduced; 5500 type is used for web printing and advertising guide inserts and the like blanket, thickness is very accurate, especially suitable for the printing of FM network images. In May 2004, Day further introduced a sheet-fed printing blanket using DuraZone technology.

DuCo's newest product, DotMaster blankets, is specially designed for sheet-fed and carton printing. This product has a thicker compressible layer, strong fabric, good tensile properties, and is used for ordinary ink printing. The users of Dot Mas-ter reported that the product has good performance in dot duplication, material resistance, and the edge of the blanket is not easily damaged.

Vulcan Alto, a high-end rubberized blanket from the United States, is specifically tailored for high-speed heat-fixation rotary presses. The compressible layer is a closed micro-balloon structure, which has good elasticity, especially in the high-speed printing process; the three-layer surface makes it more abrasion resistant and impact resistant; the cloth base has a low elongation coefficient to obtain maximum on-board stability and avoids Faults and expensive losses due to vibration in high-speed printing.

Reeves, Italy VulcanND 999 adhesive air cushion with patented biaxial material layer. The press operator can cut and install the blanket in any direction, which shortens the boot preparation time and makes full use of the blanket. Vulcan ND 999 is extremely stable on the rollers due to the use of high-strength stretch-resistant fabrics. It is specially designed for the printing of carbonless paper tickets, and the ink microcapsules will not be broken during the printing process.

Adopt new materials

Complementing this new technology is the development of new materials.

In 2003, MacDermid started production of Rollin brand new blanket series. The first batch includes: Web 64+, Precise, cartonPlus, and Stabil-X. The Stabil-X exhibited at Graph Expo uses new polymers and artificial fibers instead of nitrile rubber and cotton fabrics to achieve exceptional mechanical properties, good print quality and long life.

The S7630 blanket developed by Jinyang Co., Ltd. uses a new formula for the surface rubber to enhance the fastness of the bottom cloth. The affinity between the surface and the ink is improved, the amount of ink transferred during printing is increased, the printing color is thick, and the edge of the printed dot is clear. The new formulation of the S7630 facesheet effectively prevents the swelling and surface smudging of the blanket, while the reinforced base fabric allows it to have a stable thickness and a longer service life. Especially at the clamping bar, the advantages are even more pronounced.

Phoenix North America's new Carat blanket is a new generation of upgrades. New materials are used in the compressible layer, and its compression properties can be adjusted in various ways depending on the requirements. The product undergoes special heat treatment, the thickness is precisely leveled, and the installation is simple and convenient. New chemical materials have been added to the topsheet, the ink transfer performance has been further improved, and the dot gain has been reduced. According to reports, a cloth-based pretreatment technology ensures that the elongation of the cloth base is greatly reduced without damaging the cloth, resulting in a high-quality high-grade blanket. It is said that all existing varieties of Phoenix will be upgraded to Carat series products using this technology.

Matching blanket cleaner

The life of the blanket is closely related to the quality of the cleaning agent.

At the time of sale, ContiTech blankets in Germany have a partner, Prisco, which specializes in blanket cleaning agents for web offset presses. Its package products include: Conti-A ir zenith blankets, webfount concentrates, and Webwash blankets or roller cleaning agents. The Conti-Air Zenith blanket is characterized by a special cloth and the compressible layer is a patented “blown cell” foaming technology. The glue has good hydrophilicity, good paper feeding control and long service life. Blanket and cleaning agent are complementary in performance, giving printers a complete solution.

Prisco has new technologies for reducing the concentration of volatile solvents generated by blankets or roller cleaners in the shop, resulting in good cleaning results and low residual oil deposits. In the past, similar products often overlooked one another, and their technical content was low. Prisco's current low-vaporizers include: Autowash 4300, 5900 and 9070, suitable for manual or automatic cleaning systems. In addition, E-Cure Classic NH is used to clean common inks and UV inks. PES C34 is suitable for the cleaning of rotary offset blankets.

Automatic blanket cutting machine

Gerber Innovations, a company known for its computer cutting plotters and inkjet printers, developed a fully automatic blanket cutting machine called the Gerber Sector according to the needs of the printing industry. The supporting software comes with a database containing the specifications of various printing blankets. When the user enters the model number of the printing machine, the corresponding blanket drawing can be immediately displayed. According to the width of the raw material, the arrangement can be arranged on the display screen, the trimming is performed, the button is pressed after confirmation, and the blade is automatically and quickly cut on the wide platform. Cut (including the chamfer of the corner), cutting size is accurate. The software also captures templates for personalized design. If the pencil holder is replaced with a pencil, the outline can be drawn on paper or polyester sheet as a proof before cutting. The precise chain gear drive and vacuum suction platform ensure that the transfer of the blanket is skewed to zero and there is no relative movement during cutting. The tool automatically adjusts the cutting angle according to the thickness of the blanket.

Reprinted from: Print Magazine