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Water-based inks and solvent-based inks have different requirements for printing rollers.
The surface finish of the plate is not high, and the ink is not easy to scrape clean. Due to the excellent transferability of the water-based ink, the ink that adheres to the surface of the gravure roller after being scraped by the doctor blade easily transfers to the printing substrate, which can lead to dirty prints. Therefore, it is necessary to frequently increase the pressure of the doctor blade. If the hardness of the chrome plating on the plate roller surface is insufficient, the service life will be shortened.
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Recently, water-based ink has attracted great attention in the industry. To better utilize water-based ink, companies should understand the different requirements of water-based inks and solvent-based inks for the printing plate rollers.
1. Water-based ink has higher requirements for the precision, smoothness, and electroplating layer of the printing plate rollers.
Often, due to the slower drying of water-based ink and better transfer, the depth of the printing plate roller's mesh holes is shallower. At this time, the precision requirement for the plate is not high, and the ink layer cannot cover the defects of the plate body. Common issues such as 'car model patterns' and 'washboard' are caused by this.
If the surface smoothness of the plate is not high, the ink is not easy to scrape clean. Due to the excellent transferability of water-based ink, the ink that adheres to the surface of the gravure roller after being scraped is easily transferred to the printing substrate, which can lead to dirty prints. Therefore, it is necessary to frequently increase the pressure of the scraper. If the hardness of the chrome plating layer on the surface of the printing plate roller is insufficient, its service life will be shortened.
2. The depth and gradient of high and dark tones differ significantly from those of solvent ink printing plates.
Water-based ink transfers well, and the reproduction of shallow screens is particularly prominent. The viscosity change of the ink in the gravure mesh holes is not obvious from the time it is scraped to the time it is transferred, making it easy to reproduce the dots completely. If the engraving parameters of the printing plate roller are still set according to traditional solvent ink plates, it can easily lead to a significant weakening of the contrast in high and dark tones, often resulting in a trade-off. This requires that during plate making, the gradient should be made steeper, the dark tone areas slightly deeper, and the middle to high tone areas slightly shallower. Only by considering this can the gradient of high and dark tones be perfectly reproduced.
3. The degree of dot expansion is greater than that of solvent ink.
Generally speaking, the printing viscosity of water-based ink is lower, and it dries more slowly. Additionally, the ink contains various additives and alcohol-based solvents, which causes serious expansion of lines and characters in the printed pattern. This leads to thicker lines, blunted corners, enlarged positive characters, and reduced negative characters, resulting in unclear text and barcode scanning failures, causing waste. Therefore, we should fully consider this when making plates and appropriately reduce the thickness of the lines.
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Shaanxi Xinaohua Material Technology Co., Ltd
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