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MaxiPrint is a newly developed long life blade material for use by flexographic, gravure printers, paper and tissue mills. Our challenge was to produce this extremely tough steel fulfilling doctor blade specifications without losing any desirable properties.
The metallurgy and cold rolling techniques used to make conventional doctor blade steels are impressive. However, the successful production of MaxiPrint required a significant advance in these techniques.
The microstructure of the new MaxiPrint steel consists of finely distributed small carbides, giving it exceptional wear resistance and performance better than many alternatives.
MaxiPrint blades are flexible like conventional blades and move slightly with the microscopical undulations of the anilox without contributing to possible wear of the anilox. Running-in time for MaxiPrint blades is similar to that of normal steel blades. Once run in, the Maxiprint blades conform to the anilox far closer than the larger grained conventional steels or other materials.
Customers will benefit from needing only one blade change in comparison to 2 to 4 changes with conventional blades under the same printing conditions. This results in increased production and reduced costs. The better service life of Longlife compared to conventional blades is even more obvious at mills where coating colours containing a high chalk content are being used.
The Longlife coater blade gives at least the same but often a better quality of the paper surface than a conventional blade or a ceramic-coated blade. This is why the Longlife blade is often found to be the best choice for the top coater.
The Longlife coater blade is used like a conventional blade. No special operator training is needed. Furthermore, the Longlife coater blade has the same geometrical properties as a conventional blade. Thus, no change of blade holder is necessary. The Longlife coater blade can be used for both stiff and bent blade coating.
Flexographic Printers:
MaxiPrint was initially developed for the flexographic system because of the excessive doctor blade wear experienced. Since the introduction of MaxiPrint, printers have significantly improved both blade life and print quality.
Blade wear, however, is not reduced automatically by changing to MaxiPrint. There are other variables that may affect life such as chamber or blade pressure settings and alignment across the anilox. The straightness of the ink chamber must always be as near perfect as possible in order to have a good wipe across the anilox roll without using excessive blade pressure.
Gravure Printers:
We supply MaxiPrint to gravure printers who are printing on both paper and film, often with the more abrasive water based inks. We also have an increasing number of solvent-based printers using MaxiPrint because of the cleaner wipe that this grade gives.
Paper & Tissue Mills:
The demand for our Longlife Coater Blades has steadily increased since it was developed some years ago. This special steel has been a challenge to cold roll successfully but we have continuously improved our manufacturing techniques and "fine-tuned" the properties of this unique material. As a result the demand for Longlife is higher than ever. Many Paper Mills are taking advantage of the Longlife's benefits as they strive to achieve an increased production of high quality paper.