Feature
An update on consumables and substrates
Pressroom chemicals
Like oil and gas in your vehicle, pressroom chemicals are
absolutely essential to the efficient running of an offset press.
These can include fountain solutions and additives, alcohol
replacements, press wash-up products (including roller and
blanket washes) silicones (for heatset web presses) and spe-
cialty products such as roller deglazers, plate desensitizers,
chrome roller cleaners and more. The bottom line should
involve two important factors – ongoing and preventative
maintenance plus final cost per printed page. Proper press
maintenance checks that are often overlooked include water
tanks and water lines, water pans, roller deglazing and more.
These can affect ink/water balance, drying times, on-press
colour consistency and the ability to have repeatable, predict-
able results. Ongoing and preventative maintenance should
be integrated into a weekly schedule without affecting your
production deadlines. For example, I recall seeing a printer
use a roller deglazer after printing a piece that included metal-
lic silver. It was amazing to see the deglazer solution clean
up the unit in a just few minutes. Above all, the printer reported
savings of $20,000 over four years because he didn’t need
to buy any new rollers. This brings us to our next factor – cost
per page.
“If you buy everything on up-front price without a guarantee
of on-press performance, you’re playing a risky game,” said
Mike Thibault, vice president of technical services at Unigraph
International, Canada’s leading pressroom chemical manu-
facturer. “For example, in some cases just changing to a
premium fountain solution or alcohol replacement can lower
a printer’s ink bill by 5% by the end of the year, while also
reducing paper waste.” Unigraph recently expanded its pro-
duction facility in Delson, Quebec, and is making major
headway in the US. Printers on both sides of the border are
becoming loyal users because, at the end of the day (and
year), their consumables’ cost-per-page is reduced, print
quality is improved and on-press performance is easily
repeatable.
Plates
While new plates of all
types are constantly
being released to mar-
ket, overall it’s been a
tough year cost-wise
for plate producers and
users. Agfa, Fujifilm and
Kodak were forced to
increase their prices 9%
to 10% earlier this year
due mainly to the
34 | October 2018 | GRAPHIC ARTS MAGAZINE
Tony Curcio
escalating prices of raw materials (i.e. aluminum) and higher
labour costs. However, printers can extend the life of their
plates by placing more attention on proper plate cleaning,
being more cautious when demounting plates, and meticu-
lously identifying when a plate (or parts of a plate) are
becoming worn. Also realize that all plates are not equal. Each
plate has different emulsion and plate-graining characteristics.
These can affect ink/water balance, tone reproduction, dot
gain, run life, handling, paper waste and overall print perform-
ance. So do your homework and ask these questions: What’s
the average processing time of the plate? Will you be able to
run more jobs with it? Can last-minute changes and rush jobs
be accommodated? Will it fit seamlessly into your prepress
workflow? Your best bet always, is to first contact your supplier
or plate manufacturer.
Printing blankets
Likely the most important advance in printing blankets
involves the rollout of Landa Nanographic printing presses.
Their use of specially treated blankets embodies break-
through technology to ensure an optimal image – including
the full image transfer to the paper, the prevention of any ink
residues, and smooth and stable blanket motion. Their design
enables the transfer of the NanoInk ink drops to the various
substrates – without leaving a trace on the blanket. This
ensures that the full image is transferred without any distor-
tions and, most importantly, the blanket remains completely
clean and ready to receive the next image. Estimated life of
these blankets is about 500,000 sheets.
A few years ago, German manufacturer ContiTech came out
with a new offset printing blanket made of glass beads. Its
Black Pearl blanket uses about 7,000 ultra-fine glass beads
per square centimetre that are anchored in the cover layer,
each with the exact same diameter. The key is the completely
uniform distribution of the glass beads and their stable
anchoring in the base. Black Pearl is resistant to enormous
embossing pressure, temperatures up to 160°C and most
printing chemicals.
Now for the majority of printers using standard blankets,
consider this: a press that uses 20 blankets a month is putting
over 1,000 lbs. of rubber waste annually into landfill. One
Canadian company still leading the way in blanket re-use is
Vancouver-based Enviro Image Solutions (EIS). Through its
blanket rejuvenation program, printers can reuse their blan-
kets up to 12 times.
Substrates
Most commercial printers are looking for guarantees when it
comes to a substrate’s runability, printability, shade, or
smoothness – anything that might affect production, overall
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