Flexographic Printing - Latest Addition to Our Foam Plate Mounting Assortment

Technologies

tesa Softprint® TP-X FLEX: Combining our new “FLEX” design, introduced in 2016, with another product line: TP-X

Flexible packaging printing will continue to be a growth market. According to Smithers Pira, “the global market for flexible packaging is forecast to grow at an annual average rate of 3.4% during the period 2015-2020”.
(“The Future of Global Flexible Packaging to 2020")

In a growing and dynamic market like flexographic printing, the extent to which a company can participate in this growth depends on the flexibility to react to market trends and offer benefits to the market. One of the main market trends in flexographic printing is shorter print jobs, and therefore more job changeovers per day.
The right selection of plate mounting tapes consequently becomes more and more crucial to support efficient process steps before, during, and after printing. More efficiency, less waste, less downtime, and less complexity lead to an overall reduction of process costs.

We constantly strive to support printers in their daily challenges and have now further developed our extensive tesa Softprint® assortment by introducing tesa Softprint® TP-X in combination with our new product design “FLEX”. This brand new development is optimised for lean production processes and maximised efficiency on the shop floor.

Easy plate demounting

By avoiding time consuming plate cleaning procedures before the plate mounting process.

Our tesa Softprint® TP-X plate side adhesive is based on a new robust chemistry that does not react with ink residues. Meticulous and time consuming plate cleaning procedures before plate mounting are therefore a thing of the past. After printing, plates can be easily removed from the tape, even if there is ink residue on the plates. This would have led to an increased bond between plate and tape if other adhesives had been used, thus increasing the risk of plate damage.

Sleeve expansion during mounting process

By ensuring a reliable tape bond on thin-walled sleeves.

Changes in sleeve circumference due to air mandrel pressure during sleeve mounting can cause the tape bond to break. Our “FLEX” product design offers more flexibility and therefore compensates for the differences in sleeve circumference, ensuring a reliable tape bond at all times. You will benefit from a trouble-free printing process with minimised press downtime and the highest process efficiency.

Scratched sleeves lead to inconsistent bonding surfaces

By ensuring a reliable tape bond on sleeve surfaces with cut marks.

Scratched sleeves lead to an inconsistent surface, which is detrimental to secure tape bonds. tesa Softprint® TP-X FLEX combines a flexible product design with a specially-engineered adhesive on the sleeve side, resulting in a secure bond even on demanding sleeve surfaces. This again allows for the smoothest processes, so you can achieve the necessary output.

Secure tape bond on sleeve after plate demounting

By improved tape reusability.

Tape reusability depends on various factors. One of them is the perfect balance between the bonding strength to the sleeve and the plate, as you want the tape to remain on the sleeve when demounting the plate. However, once you are ready to remove the tape from the sleeve at a later point of time, you also have to be able to demount the tape easily and without residue. Our new product offers specially engineered adhesives providing exactly this critical balance to support tape reusability.

The best print quality combined with less complexity

The combination of tesa Softprint® tapes with the latest plate technologies and high-quality printing presses makes the best print quality of combination motifs possible even when only one foam hardness is selected. This enables printers to reduce process complexity and facilitates a more standardised print production.
Our well-proven foam quality is also the basis for our new product, tesa Softprint® TP-X FLEX. Not only are the components of our tapes of the highest quality, they are also handled with the utmost care throughout the specifically developed production process. This enables our customers to achieve unrivaled and award-winning print results. The foam’s closed cell structure perfectly absorbs compression and recovers quickly, making it suitable for the high press speeds of today and tomorrow.

Benefits of tesa Softprint® Foam Quality

Benefits of tesa Softprint® FE-X Adhesives

Providing more efficiency on the shop floor

Mounting: Avoiding time consuming cleaning procedures
Printing: Reliable tape bond even on critical sleeves
Demounting: Easy demounting even if there is ink residue on the plate; improved tape reusability

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