Description

Anilox laser Prep & Finishing Kit – Developed to help improve the finished result for any engraved ceramic anilox after cleaning with any laser system

We recommend that before any contaminated anilox is put into a laser cleaner that you use our Anilox laser prep to remove any heavy ink or coating build up on the surface of any anilox.

When the anilox has been cleaned by the laser it is very common to see residual staining marks embedded deep within the coating.

These marks cannot be removed by the laser cleaning systems as they our below the engraved surface,

For this reason, we have developed our anilox laser finish product which will reach deep into ceramic coating and remove any remaining unsightly marks and leave you with a uniform look across and around the entire face of the anilox. It will work with water, solvent, UV or oil based inks and coatings.

How to remove residual water stains, camouflaging , banding issues after laser cleaning

If you are cleaning your anilox rolls and sleeves with one of the many laser cleaning systems available today but are experiencing some or all of the above issues, then you are not on your own.
It would seem counterintuitive when you have made the investment in this relatively new cleaning technology ” laser cleaning” but is a fact that many are having to face up to.
The truth is all lasers do a very good job of vaporizing the inks and coatings that can be seen within the engraved cell and cell walls but unfortunately, they can do nothing about the embedded contaminants that can be found within the porosity of the ceramic coating.
Now if you are a coating and engraving company, I can hear you saying that your coatings have little or no porosity when under a microscope and compared to your competitors may well be the case. That said unfortunately all ceramic coatings are not equal and even with a minimal porosity many pigment and resin particle sizes are nano micron dimension and will get driven deep into the coating with the added hydraulic force of ink and coatings when being driven at high speed and under intense pressure.
What makes it much worse is that the contamination is very unevenly distributed ,usually in patches generally described as camouflaging, water staining and banding.
All of these effects are highly detrimental to achieving a good even distribution and lay down of inks and coating and worse, the pattern itself is very often transferred to the printed image on the substrate.
The result of these embedded particles is that your anilox will plug rapidly after cleaning due to the fact that similar particles tend to attract more of the same, which in turn means more frequent cleaning and the viscous circle begins.
To help overcome these issues, we have developed two cleaning products that can be used before laser cleaning . We call it anilox laser prep and post laser cleaning, and we call this product anilox laser finish.
The Anilox laser prep as the name suggests is used to remove any heavy dried ink on the face and from within the engraved cells . This will ensure that there are no heavy spots of ink or coating on the anilox surface which will ensure a more uniform clean removal and cleaning of the engraving . This will in turn reduce the operator’s tendency to put the roll through the laser process multiple times in an attempt to remove thicker built-up spots. Doing this can result in thermal damage to the engraved cell walls and leave a witness mark where the built-up patch of ink was due to the uneven thermal treatment of the coating.
Now the most frustrating issue is the residual water staining, camouflaging and banding that in most cases remains after laser cleaning due to the fact that this contamination is embedded within the porosity of the coating and therefore cannot be reach by the laser no matter how many times it has been laser cleaned.
There are only two solutions for this one is ultrasonics which we sell and the other is the right chemical formula which we also sell and we
have named it “Anilox Laser finish”. This is a liquid product that once rubbed into the ceramic surface will quickly penetrate the ceramic coating and begin dissolving the contaminants which can then be flushed out with fresh water and dried using one of our microfiber pads.
For best results, the product should be applied using one of our Erazor applicator sponges . Apply a small amount to the sponge and rub into the ceramic surface in a circular motion across and around the entire surface of the anilox. This is an important point ,you must not try to spot clean the anilox at this stage as it will leave a witness mark where the cleaning has been carried out which in turn would transfer ink or coating differently than the surrounding area.
By following our Prep and finishing steps you will have a perfectly uniformly engraved pattern and with the deep cleaning of the solutions’ the engraving will stay clean for much longer on press as there is no contaminant still embedded within it when it is put back in the press.