Uflex Announces Glitter Gravure Cylinder

Published: March 13, 2018

NOIDA, INDIA | Uflex says it is the first Indian company to manufacture Glitter Printing Rotogravure Cylinder on its state-of-the-art direct laser engraving line. According to the company, pigments of glitter inks are substantially bigger in size than those of conventional gravure inks, making rotogravure printing on substrates using glitter inks a challenge for convertors.

Talking about the newly developed glitter printing rotogravure cylinder, P.K. Agarwal, joint president cylinders business at Uflex, says, “It is extremely difficult for a cylinder with electro-mechanically engraved conventional gravure cells to pick up pigments of the glitter ink and transfer them on to the substrate. Therefore, we developed bigger sized customized pits [cells] that trap the high solid content of the glitter ink. The customization of cell geometry of the rotogravure cylinder on our direct laser engraving line is the real innovation here. Pigments of the glitter ink have a tendency to get stuck inside the pits of the cylinder. When the printing surface is sandwiched between the impression roller and the gravure cylinder, the high solid contents of the glitter ink get transferred from recessed cells to the substrate with the help of capillary action and the tangential force of the roller.”

Agarwal explains further: “Glitter inks, unlike other conventional gravure inks, do not possess self-curing properties. Therefore to enable quick and effective curing of the glitter ink, we developed a Light Emitting Diode (LED) curing system and installed it on our proofing/printing machines. The high solid content of the glitter ink on the printing surface imparts superior tactile effect along with the shimmer, tremendously enhancing the shelf impact of the pack and catching the attention of the customer.…There is great demand for this type of printing from the convertors of flexible packaging for high-impulse buying of consumer goods, particularly in the food and confectionery segment.”

The specialty glitter ink has been manufactured for flexible substrates such as paper and heat-sensitive films and can be cured using LED lamps applied in-line with gravure printing process using solvent- or water-based ink system.

The company manufactures different variants, including metallic glitter and polymeric glitter inks, among others. Conventional metallic shades are available only in gold, silver, and copper, whereas polymeric glitter inks are available in several colors.

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