Flexo Plate Sleeves

One of the quality challenges with ITR imaging, however, has been the problem of edge cure. It is extremely difficult by conventional methods to mask the outermost edges of the sleeve polymer to prevent it from being exposed by the light source. This can cause the edges of the plate sleeve to retain an undesirable relief that will transfer ink to the substrate. Currently, platemakers use a variety of workarounds to mask the plate edges, such as painting, airbrushing, and taping on a UV blocking agent. These methods work to varying degrees of success, but hand-masking is often time-consuming and is by no means an exact science.