is your press equipped with auto blanket wash device?

[Albert Noel]

if so, do you use it or do you wash by hand?

 

[rbailleu]

we use the ones that work. I need to fix one of ours, but that should be done this week end. I would use the ones on our other presses but the either don't work or require more effort to use than washing by hand.

 

[Internal_R&D_Analyst]

We use them, you can wash all the blankets in the time it takes to do one by hand.

 

[ian]

Blanket wash

Blanket wash

if so, do you use it or do you wash by hand?

We have the autowash but have noticed that after 4-5 hours of straight running it doesent work as good, then we wash them by hand

Ian

 

[RGPW17100]

We have the cloth blanket washers and they work great. Gives the operator time to reload the press.

 

[Sfdp2300]

Strickly hand washing here. Heidelbergs roller and blade systems on older press had problem dripping solvents onto cam followers...

 

[Slagneb]

if so, do you use it or do you wash by hand?

Anyone had the chance to run a press with wet rolls and a press with dry rolls? If so any differences, comparisons, advantages???

 

[dana]

my current press has a brush roller cleaning system, which work very well. I've used other presses i've used had cloth blanket washers, they worked ok.

Wet Cloth (Baldwin Prepac and Seibert Cloth)
Clean the blankets nicely, but tend to stay damp on the blanket and leave build up on the tailing edge of the blanket.

Dry Cloth (Dupont Blue Cloth)
Clean the blankets ok. On the press I had troubles with paper lines that needed to be scrubbed with hot water and sometimes had problems with to much solvent/water ending up in the blanket gap and splashing on the run.

 

[Albert Noel]

ours has the brush style units.
we get some excess wash at the tail and into the gap that sometimes splashes.
we stopped using them some time ago because we needed new brushes and we just got used to washing by hand. i'm just trying to justify to management that they are beneficial and worth replacing.

if the majority of you guys are using them, i have a little leverage

 

[Freeman A.Gain]

We use a Baldwin wet cloth system and it works quite well. Our system is about 3 years old so still new, and also allows us to switch between UV wash and Conventional wash and water, having three separate reservoirs. Depending on which of the 10 programs we use, we can use little wash and lots of water for paper lines or more solvent for the big solids, there is occasionally some extra wash on the blanket but not loads, to drip everywhere.

 

[OurRollsCleanAllInks]

For press owners that want to use wet rolls

For press owners that want to use wet rolls

We make presoaked rolls and we repair blanket washers that use cloth rolls. We will cut usage over other rolls 25-66% because of the solvent in our rolls that contains less than 2% VOCs. Same roll cleans ALL inks, even UV. If you are using dry rolls and spraying, we can get you onto wet rolls and save the hassles of drums, storage, freight, disposal, clogged nozzles, cloth tearing, and blanket smashes. Made in Chicago with DuPont Sontara cloth and sold in the US for several years. We know blanket washers and they really are time savers and safer than washing by hand. And you can "Go Green" and promote a healthier pressroom for employees and visitors.

 

[GazKL440]

Clean Hands

Clean Hands

We have a dry cloth type blanket and back cyl wash as standard with komori that saves me an hour a day i reckon! Having done everything by hand for as long as i can remember and would be less than impressed to go back to it. In the time it took me to do back cyl's and blankets on my old roland 40 i can do both and mount plates and profile new job and re-set press for new stock etc etc the time saving is amazing.. My only issue is that running a full size sheet the cloths sometimes drag on edge of blanket and mark off onto print.. but it takes 5mins to lift them out.. I don think the saving in rags offsets the cost of the cloth but the time saving most definately does!! And at the end of the day...i have clean hands!!!

 

[BWeaver]

I just take my blankets off and replace them every few hours.

When I ran at a place that ran web presses there were a few people that would clean the blankets by hand while running the press. It was technically forbidden, but I never saw anyone get in trouble for it.

I wouldn't do it, I have no problem taking a hit on production and waste to stop the press to clean blankets and be able to keep my hands.







Yes of course I am only kidding on replacing blankets every few hours.

BW

 

[HecTiK]

For about three months I was directly spraying the blankets with press wash. Slow the press down a little, turn off the ink and spray away. I could do it in about 1100 copies from start to save, and it saved more time and was about the same waste from stopping and handwashing. And it cleaned all the metering rollers and water forms. Got in trouble though because they don't want it to go BOOM in the oven. We do have the soaked wet roll baldwins, but no one knows how to use them and or set them so we took them off. They hired a new guy w/ 20 years experience, so he might beable to make it work.

 

[Mike Herndon]

We use them, it's mandatory to meet production requirements. They can save a lot of time and work well IF they are maintained properly. We have the sm102 brush type that are modular and can be removed as a complete unit. One thing we found is the more you use them the better they work. When they start to dry out the spray bars get clogged causing streaks. We service ours every three months in rotation. With the garbage paper out there 3 months is the most we can go before they need service. The blanket you use makes a big difference in how well they work. When we do have to clean the blankets by hand it's usually just to remove paper lines.

Mike

 

[JP@mwv]

How often do you wash your blankets?

How often do you wash your blankets?

I am curious to hear from anyone out there about washing blankets.
Do you wash blankets between every job, no matter how short the run?
If not, why not?

 

[JP@mwv]

We have a dry cloth type blanket and back cyl wash as standard with komori that saves me an hour a day i reckon! Having done everything by hand for as long as i can remember and would be less than impressed to go back to it. In the time it took me to do back cyl's and blankets on my old roland 40 i can do both and mount plates and profile new job and re-set press for new stock etc etc the time saving is amazing.. My only issue is that running a full size sheet the cloths sometimes drag on edge of blanket and mark off onto print.. but it takes 5mins to lift them out.. I don think the saving in rags offsets the cost of the cloth but the time saving most definately does!! And at the end of the day...i have clean hands!!!

Do you wash blankets and back cylinders between each make ready, no matter what?
If not, why not?

 

[GazKL440]

Do you wash blankets and back cylinders between each make ready, no matter what?
If not, why not?

It depends on each job...for better quality work yes, i will do a blanket wash between M/Rs, but will leave back cyl's till end of shift or after 50k or so runs, unless running on uncoated stock and any picking is evident... when doing black plate changes on long run campaign work, if the blankets look ok at end of each run i will simply lift off inkers and run off 50 odd sheets, de-inking the blankets so to speak and swap plates without cleaning them..depends on how many runs ive done, tend to do blankets washes at a maximum of 3 stacks or 30000 sheets... I reckon i would use a jumbo roll a month if i did blankets and back cyl's on every make ready..

 

[akiyama_king]

How often do you think The brushes on a R300 would need changing if it was running one shift.
And do the imp cyl brushes tend to go at the same time as the blanket wash or do they tend to last a little longer?
and of course what do the replacement brushes cost roughly
cheers

 

[edwinb]

We make presoaked rolls and we repair blanket washers that use cloth rolls. We will cut usage over other rolls 25-66% because of the solvent in our rolls that contains less than 2% VOCs. Same roll cleans ALL inks, even UV. If you are using dry rolls and spraying, we can get you onto wet rolls and save the hassles of drums, storage, freight, disposal, clogged nozzles, cloth tearing, and blanket smashes. Made in Chicago with DuPont Sontara cloth and sold in the US for several years. We know blanket washers and they really are time savers and safer than washing by hand. And you can "Go Green" and promote a healthier pressroom for employees and visitors.

If anybody wants to try alternatives they can see a range of options on our site:-

pressroom washcloths - rolls

and use the contact form if your looking for samples

edwin