Flexographic printing and plate mounting tapes

Flexographic printing is a popular method for printing large orders of custom labels and packaging designs at rapid speeds by transferring ink onto the paper or film material using flexible photopolymer plates with a backing layer, a light-sensitive relief layer, and a protective film coating. After a finishing process, the plates are mounted on a sleeve or print cylinder using a double sided plate mounting tape

The ability to print on a variety of substrates allows the process to be used for a wide range of printed products. Food packaging is an important market because of the ability to print on non-porous substrates. This ability makes it useful for printing on plastic bags as well. Other common applications produced by flexographic printing include gift wrap, wallcovering, magazines, newspaper inserts, and paperback books

tesa’s Softprint® range of plate mounting tapes has been tailored precisely to meet the different printing process requirements. For example, fine dots require a harder printing plate, which, in turn, demands a softer, lower density foam tape. Firmer, higher density foams, on the other hand, are better suited to colour transfer in solid and combination printing.

Printing plates mounted with tesa Softprint® tapes can be mounted smoothly, repositioned easily, and removed simply, all without residue after demounting: advantages which make tesa plate mounting tapes the best possible choice for flexographic printers. tesa Softprint® Steel Master tapes are for mounting onto steel cylinders and tesa Softprint® Sleeve Master for sleeves.

Additionally tesa has a complimentary range of tapes for edge sealing of printing plates, core starting, roller wrapping and flagging and end-tabbing, as well as tesa EasySplice FilmLine for reliable splicing of the low surface energy films such as polyethylene used for many packing applications