Press Accessories - General

Three industry experts—David Skellie, Michael Potter, Michael Bell—offer tips on maintaining anilox functionality, including the use and care of anilox sleeves.

Knowing the symptoms of unnecessary blade wear can mean the difference of thousands of dollars a year in blade replacements, blade sharpening expenses, and downtime incurred from removing and replacing blades. By identifying simple wear patterns on your upper and lower knife blades, you can find clues that will help you optimize the life of your blade and reduce your maintenance budget.

MADISON, N.J.—Seminars for Engineers has added new seminars on web handling and converting this year to its established seminar series. Seminars are being held at a variety of regional locations in the U.S., internationally in Germany, and can also be held on-site, in-house at a company’s request. 

Shorter runs—they are the reality for many package printers today. This reality can impact your slitters/rewinders by way of greater wear and tear, more frequent tool changes, and so on, but these are not the only packaging trends that affect the slitters/rewinders market. The myriad substrates available to converters alone impacts slitter/rewinder performance and construction. Thank the emergence of flexible packaging for the increased substrate requirements. All these factors will impact your business in terms of what equipment you buy—a typical rewinder versus a turret rewinder, for example—what you will do to increase the lifespan of such equipment, as well as what other types

Web handling is a broad category of products that can range from slitters/rewinders, web guides, register, tension controls, and web inspection. Web guiding and tension control are two factors that help converters control waste as well as the web’s “wobble” as it comes off the roll. In the case of tension control, sensor selection is a major factor. Using low-cost sensors that require constant recalibration is no longer acceptable to converters. Tension Control Issues Although some converters may be intimidated by the tension control concept, the waste reduction and improvement in product quality are more than worth the investment. “Tension control is perhaps

Several factors contribute to long doctor blade life. Coatings, proper setting of the blade, and properly selecting a blade for your application/press will go a long way toward prolonging the life of the blade, as well as other press components such as anilox rolls. Considering the plethora of coatings and materials available to printers, blade selection today goes far beyond simply considering price. According to Perry Lichon, president of Retroflex, “While blade materials should be judged by their ability to doctor, they should also be judged for ease of handling, blade life, impact on roll wear, and overall cost.” According to Anthony Foley, vice

J AAA PRESS INTERNATIONAL AAA Press International carries the full Enercon line of corona treaters and accessories, including the TL Max and XL Series Narrow Web Corona Treaters. These treaters feature easy electrode maintenance, increased treating power, and ducting for ozone removal. Surface tension measurement solutions are also available to monitor the effectiveness of your treatment process. Write 679, www.aaapress.com, See Ad p. 30 Corona Designs For more than 30 years, Corona Designs, Inc. has been at the leading edge in “over the top” technology in narrow web to wide web corona treater stations, 1-20 KW corona generators, aluminum and stainless steel

Agfa Offers the Thermostar P970–ideal for VLF applications–and the Thermostar P971 thermal imaging plate. Write 160, Visit www.agfa.com J ANDERSON & VREELAND Offers digital prepress systems and conventional photopolymer processors and plate mounters. Platemaking materials include a range of solvent and water-wash sheet photopolymer, liquid photopolymer, rubber compounds, matrix and accessories. Write 161, Visit www.anderson vreeland.com, See Ad p. 8 J BETA INDUSTRIES The Betaflex 334 Flexo Plate Analyzer eliminates bad plates early in production cycle. Measures flexo plates, negatives, proofs, prints for true dot area, ruling, dot quality. Write 162, Visit www.beta screen.com, See Ad p. 7 BPS Printing Systems Offers state-of-the-art

J AAA PRESS INT’L Praxair™ laser-engraved ceramic anilox rolls; tint sleeve kits. Write 569, Visit www.aaapress.com, See Ad p. 30 Advanced Cylinder Repair Provides “In Press” cylinder repair services. Serves the offset, web, and flexo industries. Write 570 American Die Technology Anvil rolls and printing cylinders for narrow-web flexo equipment with web widths to 30˝. Write 571, Visit www.amdie.com American Roller Company American Roller Company designs and manufacturers rollers and specialty roller coverings. Write 572, Visit www.american roller.com Apex North America Offers ink metering auxiliaries for the flexo and coating industry. Develops the UltraMelt laser

Agfa Packaging Solutions The AgfaScan XY-15 Plus is an oversized A3 format CCD flatbed scanner for high-productivity scanning. A hand-selected, premium 8,000-element CCD allows it to achieve a maximum density of 4.1 and resolution up to 15,000 ppi. Write 186, Visit www.agfa.com Artwork Systems ArtPro®, PackFlow™, LabelFlow™, FlexoCal™, and Hybrid Screening. System platforms are designed for Macintosh and Windows NT and support multiple output devices. Write 187, Visit www.artwork-systems.com J BETA INDUSTRIES Betalog Imagesetter Densitometers measure film to densities of 6.00+, maintaining imagesetter calibration, halftone quality. Model 77 measures large film on a light table, while Betalog 150