Blade Trade-offs

On steel blades, too much pressure can send contaminating steel shavings into the ink and press components, necessitating clean-up with magnets or filters. "Converters who don't control pressure as closely can avoid this clean-up with plastics such as polyester," Clark adds.

Plastics' attractive no clean-up option may cloud selection methodology. "Magnets and filters as cleaning methods [for steel] take time, and rather than take that time, converters have thrown these methods out...and automatically go with plastic blades," comments Sharkey.