The flexographic printing industry is facing constant challenges. Printers around the world have to keep pace with increasing demands on print quality combined with shorter print runs, higher press speeds, and the demand for enhanced levels of process efficiency.
tesa caters to these market needs with a tailor-made range of high performance tapes for flexible packaging and label printing applications.
As a pioneering manufacturer with decades of experience, the company’s flexographic tapes perform an important role in helping to meet industry objectives to incorporate lean manufacturing methods along with improved performance.
The assortment of tesa Softprint plate mounting tapes is divided into two thickness categories: 500µm (20mil) and 380µm (15mil).
In the 500 µm category, two tape designs are available: tesa SoftprintCLASSIC and the new tesa Softprint FLEX to offer individual opportunities for greater process efficiency.
Due to its closed cell PE foam combined with a PET reinforcement film, tesa Softprint CLASSIC offers easy handling and is suited to a wide range of specific applications. By comparison, thanks to its aligned design which incorporates PE reinforcement layers, the tesa Softprint FLEX range is ideal for critical sleeve applications, including thin-walled sleeves and scratched sleeve surfaces.
For the 500µm tesa Softprint tape category, eight different tailor-made adhesive lines are available. They are available in different foam hardness levels, making them suitable for specific print motifs such as solids, lines, and screens.
Depending on the individual printer’s needs and conditions, the perfect combination of adhesives on both tape sides (sleeve and plate side) can be selected. Sleeve types, plate models, conditions, ink types, and process requirements all play a significant role in choosing the right plate mounting tape.
The company also offers three different adhesive lines of tesa Softprint CLASSIC for narrow web printing in the 380µm (15mil) category, including tesa Softprint Steelmaster, tesa Softprint Steelmaster TP, and tesa Softprint Secure.
They are available in five different foam hardness levels, for all requirements in print quality.
There is currently a trend towards ‘no-label-look’ packaging concepts, meaning that the printed information looks as if it was directly printed on the packaging instead of on a label. The area of the printed image normally has a white background, which is printed during the first step. The actual design then follows on top of the white background. The tesa Softprint assortment for label printers offers optimal solutions for both stages in the printing process.
In case high flexibility for quickly changing print jobs and volatile requirements is necessitated, this can be achieved by standardised processes and a streamlined stock of consumables. The ‘Medium’ foam hardness of the tesa Softprint assortment for flexographic label printers offers the perfect compromise to print solids, screens, and line work with just one single tape.
All tesa Softprint foams facilitate excellent print quality, supported by a smart tape production process – leaving all foam cells intact for better cushioning and resilience over time. All raw materials used in production are carefully selected by a team of dedicated chemical engineers and flexo market experts to ensure highest quality standards.
In addition to the comprehensive assortment of plate mounting tapes, tesa offers a variety of process and auxiliary tape solutions. One example are the tesa EasySplice FilmLine products, especially developed for the splicing of film substrates. Film printers benefit from this tape series through fast splice preparation and a secure splice process, even at the highest machine speed.
tesa EasySplice 51910 for example has a very high tack and is also hand-tearable, eliminating the need for knives or scissors, whilst tesa 51918 with its black PET carrier allows for easy optical splice detection.
A team of dedicated tesa flexo experts will gladly help analyse individual process requirements to find the most suitable self-adhesive tape solutions.
Richard Eeles, strategic segment manager, Print & Web Processing at tesa UK, said, ‘We offer the most advanced flexo print tape technologies designed to meet increasing requirements for fast mounting, high print quality, and demounting tape performance. With reduced prepress costs and results that rival the quality of gravure, we have been able to develop a wide range of product specifications with the consistency of performance that the industry demands.’
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