With the continuous development and evolution of the cold offset technology of offset printing, there are now many offset presses equipped with a tower, through the rational mechanical structural design, to ensure the foil belt transport and recovery.
The Cold Stamping process for offset printing has been a sensation in the industry since it was first introduced in 2004. It has achieved rapid development in the past three years and fully proved the great advantages of offset printing.
One, offset printing cold hot and traditional hot stamping comparison
Cold offset printing with traditional hot stamping in the process flow, overlay accuracy, equipment, applications, etc. have great advantages. In addition, cold offset offset printing has a major advantage: greatly reduce the cost of storage and paper materials. Generally speaking, the metal foil used in traditional hot stamping contains a substrate material, and this substrate material generally comprises two layers of materials: the first layer is silver and coated with aluminum; the second layer is also usually colored. , and use metal aluminum to polish. For traditional hot stamping, this means that whenever a new color foil is to be used, the user must buy a new hot stamp foil. This requires a large amount of reserves of printed [encyclopedia] materials, and costs warehousing and materials.
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1. Process flow
Offset Cold Pressing: One pass of paper completes the printing and transfer of metal foil, and the printing auxiliary time is greatly reduced.
Traditional hot stamping: The transfer of printing and metal foil is a two-step process and requires two auxiliary hours. The two groups of staff are time-consuming and laborious.
2. Printing plate
Offset printing: Cold printing: ordinary printing plates, and printing ink printing plate processing method.
Traditional hot stamping: templates with special text or patterns are engraved. The price of the plates is relatively expensive and requires a separate hot stamping shop.
3. Overprint accuracy
Offset printing: Cold printing: After one pass, printing and foil transfer are completed. Overprint accuracy is the same as overlay accuracy between inks.
Traditional hot stamping: Overprinting must be based on the printed graphics to match it.
4. Resolution
Offset Cold Pressing: The resolution of the plate can reach the resolution of the offset plate, so the resolution is only determined by the characteristics of the metal foil transfer.
Traditional hot stamping: Since the hot stamping pattern on the hot stamping plate is convex, it is difficult or even impossible to realize fine graphics. The more fine plate material, the more expensive it is.
5. Imprinting equipment
Cold offset printing: The two printing units complete the imprinting of the foil and can be flexibly switched (printing ink or metal foil stamping).
Traditional hot stamping: A special hot stamping machine is required. Only metal foil stamping can be used. It cannot be used to print inks.
6. Stamping temperature
Cold offset printing: At room temperature, no special adjustment and control of temperature is required.
Traditional hot stamping: generally at 70-120 degrees, hot stamping temperature is too high will cause the hot stamping pattern to lose the metallic luster, blistering occurs, the edges are not clear, the writing is imaginary, and even hot stamping is not possible, so the control of the temperature is of vital importance , is also the difficulty of its craft.
7. Hot stamping speed
Offset Cold Pressing: Only use special substrates for special metal foils to reduce speed as the case may be.
Traditional hot stamping: According to the different types of equipment, the general speed is 2000-8000 sheets/hour.
8. Application area
Cold offset printing: after the metal foil is delivered, it can be pasted flat on the substrate, and then it can be overprinted. It can be used with three processes such as partial hot stamping, full-page hot stamping, or even halftone dot change to achieve large-format hot stamping. Can be used for large area hot stamping process design.
Traditional hot stamping: Traditional hot stamping cannot be combined with a variety of hot stamping processes, and the uniformity of hot stamping on a large area is poor.
Second, the offset printing cold press and metal ink printing process comparison
Prior to the appearance of the offset printing cold-stencil process, people in order to eliminate the hot stamping process, in the offset printing process to make improvements in order to achieve the hot stamping effect. For example, metal ink printing process, although it can achieve a certain amount of metal effect, but there is still a certain gap between the actual hot stamping effect. The reason is that when printing gold and silver, even if there is enough ink layer thickness and the best ink, it is impossible to achieve the brightness of hot stamping; in addition, the hot stamping product has a certain degree of concavity and convexity, such effect is for metallic ink. The printing process is also impossible to achieve, which is determined by the fineness of the pigment of the offset ink. Even the best metallic ink, due to the presence of coarser pigment particles, its light reflection is still dominated by scattered light. . The hot stamping uses a pure metal material, the surface is a very pure smooth metal surface, the effect of mirror reflection is not comparable to ordinary offset printing, the final effect is also very different.
Third, offset printing application prospects
Cold offset printing from the beginning of the launch to everyone surprised, gradually developed to maturity, has been recognized, recognized, and even loved by everyone. With the connection of a cold-ironing device, the packaging and printing plant can enhance the effect of its printed products through a "coloring" process; the label printing factory can realize the effect of metal on wine, beer, alcoholic beverages, cosmetics and other special labels; publication Printing presses can also use linking cold stamping to efficiently add more effects to magazine covers; commercial printers can also produce more compelling direct mail advertisements, corporate business cards, annual reports, greeting cards, and other prints. The huge market space will bring a bright future for offset printing and cold pressing technology.