Details:
Summary:
In offset printing, it is generally felt that the surface of the blanket considerably affects print quality. In order to study this effect, five kinds of test blankets were prepared. They had identical compressibility, layer structure, and surface rubber compound, but differed as to surface roughness. They ranged from very smooth to very rough. It has been found that in the area of fine pattern images, the rougher surfaced blankets gave less fill-in, while making image edges more irregular. Regarding the solid ink image on paper, rougher-surfaced blankets caused more uneven solid image and more unprinted spots. It has been found that the total ink amounts transferred from PS plate was independent on the surface roughness of the blanket, but the surface roughness of the blanket affected the morphology of the transferred ink image.