Can bad quality UV coating cause fires?

[JPK]

I am an ink and coatings supplier that imports mostly European brands.

I have a customer that does a lot of offline UV coating for sheetfed printed products using an old Roland 600 coupled with a Steineman UV dryer.

A few weeks ago his machine almost caught fire for no apparent reason. Apparently a sheet caught fire as it was going under the UV lamps.

He has been using this ultra cheap UV coating that our competitor is providing him from a Chinese maker but it is my suspicion that they are diluting it with some solvent (probably acetone) to make it cheaper. Could this be the reason the sheet caught fire so easily?

Have you had or heard of similar situations in other printing/finishing companies?

 

[dabob]

He would be better off using gasoline as a thinner . . . from wikipedia

Flammability

The most common hazard associated with acetone is its extreme flammability. It auto-ignites at a temperature of 465 °C (869 °F). At temperatures greater than acetone's flash point of −20 °C (−4 °F), air mixtures of between 2.5% and 12.8% acetone, by volume, may explode or cause a flash fire. Vapors can flow along surfaces to distant ignition sources and flash back. Static discharge may also ignite acetone vapors.[12]

 

[Corey]

This is scary. Sometimes sparks can be caused by static charge. Did you see any printing defects with this material like overspray or edge feathering?