Flexographic Tech Wins Gold in Excellence in Flexography Awards
May 16, 2018Flexographic Tech took home the Gold award for the College Student Category of Flexographic Technical Association’s 2018 Excellence in Flexography Awards. Student Aaron Pitt (Computype) from Flexographic Tech’s 12-week Press Operator Course produced the award-winning card.
The winning holiday card was printed on both sides of 8pt tag (supplied by Avery Dennison). The black text on the inside of the card was printed in station one and the web was flipped using the turn bar. The student then printed a 4-color process image, a spot green, a high gloss spot varnish and a tactile pearlescent varnish over the snowflakes (the card shows the four graduating classes from 2017).
The tactile pearlescent vanish (supplied by Flint Group) was run using a 105 CPI, 28 BCM anilox roll. With this much ink film thickness, the student had to run slow (95 fmp) with max UV lamp settings in order to cure properly. The card was printed on a Mark Andy 2200 13-in press. The student used extra-wide (half inch) bearer bars on the plate to help reduce the plate bounce inherent with the 22-year-old press. Tight registration on the images with fine detail of logos made registration challenging. High-resolution plates (Kodak-supplied NX plates) required excellent kiss impression settings to allow for great-looking highlight dots and crisp images.
