Ten basic practices for extending the life of the blanket

At present, many printing companies only know that the purchase of high-quality blankets can improve the quality of the printing, but do not attach importance to the storage and proper use of the blanket after entering the factory. This article discusses how to extend the service life of the blanket for your reference.

1. The management of offset blankets is an important part of prepress preparation for printing presses. The factory leader must realize that proper management can also extend the life of the blanket, and the effort in maintenance is beneficial. It can reduce the number of blanket replacements within a specified time.

2. From the date when the qualified rubber blanket enters the factory, scientific management and safekeeping work must be done. It's best not to put the blanket into the factory directly on the machine. It should allow the blanket to be temporarily stored until it is gradually used to relax after the cylindrical curl is transported.

3. Keep the blankets dry, ventilate, and away from heat to avoid direct sunlight.

If conditions permit, the blanket can be hung on a stick or a solid metal wire so that the blanket is compatible with the environment. In addition, protected areas can also be tiled or not. If you need to place multiple blankets in one place, place them face to face or back to back so that the fibers on the back of a blanket do not cut into the elastic face of another blanket. Be careful not to store used blankets and new blankets together. This will prematurely degrade the new blanket because the lower blanket contains moisture and dirt.

4. Before installing the blanket on the machine, the amount of liner needed should be calculated to ensure good squeezing between the printing plate and the blanket, but to avoid excessive lining, too many liners will make the blanket and seal The pressure of the plate and the impression cylinder is too large. Continuous overpressure will cause the blanket to wear prematurely. In severe cases, it will also produce offset and wrinkle defects.

5. When installing a new blanket, be careful when fixing the blanket to the drum. Even if the new blanket has an excellent rectangular size, it is necessary to use a triangle ruler and a long ruler to measure the parallelism of the two sides of the blanket, or reshape it into a rectangle. This is also an important step to extend the life of the blanket.

6, the length of the blanket should be smaller than the size of the pillow, the underlying liner must be narrower than the blanket. In this way, when the blanket is tight, the left and right sides of the blanket are tightly tightened on the roller surface of the machine, which can prevent impurities such as impurities, oil cleaning agent, and water in the printing process from being drilled inside and cause blanket delamination. , blistering, etc.

7. Proper cleaning of the blanket can also extend the life of the blanket. It is advisable to use both hands for cleaning, that is, wipe the blanket wet with a sponge or cotton yarn with detergent on one hand, and dry it with a clean cloth or cotton yarn on the other hand to keep the cleaning agent on the blanket as short as possible. In addition to careful cleaning, the use of a special blanket cleaner is also an important measure to extend the life of the blanket. The oxidative deterioration of the blanket can be accelerated by the use of a poor cleaning agent such as gasoline.

8. To prevent the hard objects and sand on the paper from hurting the blanket, once it is bruised, even if the new blanket has not been used immediately after it is on the machine, this is often overlooked. Therefore, we should do a good job of paper selection and workshop hygiene. We should not place printing paper directly on the ground.

9. The "ideal pressure" advocated by the offset printing process not only guarantees the quality of the product, but also has an important significance for extending the service life of the blanket and reducing the creep. Therefore, we must do our best.

10. When the blanket removed from the machine is stored, the ink and oil must be washed with detergent and then washed with a 5% alkaline solution to saponify the oil that has penetrated into the surface of the blanket and then washed with water to remove the saponification. The object was wiped dry, and finally talc was rushed.

Author / Guo Jianzhong

Source: Guangdong Printing