Printing Blankets
Printing blankets are essential components in the offset printing process, tasked with picking up ink from the printing plate and transferring it onto the printing substrate without distortion. The quality of the transfer, ink uniformity, the resolution of the raster dot and the uniformity of solids depend directly on the type, quality and condition of the blanket.
The Printman portfolio covers three main types: conventional blankets for general sheet-fed and web printing, UV / H-UV / LED-UV blankets chemically resistant to inks that cure by polymerization, and coating blankets / coating plates used for the selective application of WB or UV varnish.
Main brands
- Kinyo
- Flint Group
- Tyref
How our solutions help
We recommend the right blanket by identifying the type of press (sheet-fed or rotary), the ink used (conventional, UV, H-UV or LED-UV), the printing substrate and the production speed. A correctly chosen blanket means optimal ink transfer, dimensional stability and a long service life for both commercial work and packaging in large print runs.
How often do you run into these problems?
- Print quality has deteriorated and we don't know why. Ghosting, the image doubling on the sheet, recurring spots or white patches, weak and uneven ink transfer. These are defects that often don't disappear easily and that indicate a worn, damaged or simply unsuitable blanket for that particular job.
- The blanket doesn't last through the run. Short service life, accelerated wear or visible deterioration after switching to UV inks. A conventional blanket used with UV ink is not a matter of preference but a definite chemical incompatibility that destroys the blanket quickly.
- The application has changed and the current blanket can no longer cope. Switching to selective WB or UV coating requires a dedicated blanket. The surface of a standard printing blanket is not designed for the uniform transfer of varnish, nor necessarily for cutting out unwanted areas.
Customers who come to us with blanket-related needs frequently also face recurring technical problems identified in production, such as:
- Accidental crushing- the blanket is struck by a foreign object in the press and no longer returns to its original thickness, affecting the printed image.
- Chemical incompatibility with UV inks- conventional blankets swell and deteriorate quickly in contact with the solvents in UV inks.
- Poor reproduction of raster dots- a worn blanket or a type unsuitable for the printing speed and substrate.
- Picking of paper fibers or delamination of the board surface- the blanket surface is unsuitable for the substrate used.
