Maintaining and Improving Printing Properties of Fine Papers.

Research at Nekoosa-Edwards is primarily applied research, with considerable effort expended on evaluation of those materials and processes that will improve the formation, levelness, opacity, and performance in printing. A Vandercook proof press is used to study properties such as ink mileage, printing show-through, print quality, ink drying, and picking. For the smaller jobs on offset printing, extensive use is made n- of the office offset duplicator. On larger jobs, a commercial offset shop, using standard test plates, evaluates the papers. Eleven papermaking machines have individual production capacities that go as high as 14,000 pounds of paper per hour; consequently, it becomes necessary to develop quick tests that will predict how the paper will perform on commercial presses. Typical routine control tests include basis weight, thickness, moisture content, porosity, brightness, opacity, smoothness, and curl. Both the Dennison wax test and the LTF pick tester are used. For special applications another pick test involving the but a constant program of correlation of these tests with actual press performance allows limits to be set on the test values that will insure press performance.