Spring Cleaning

Anilox Roll Cleaning Systems (Hatfield, Pa.) offers baking soda blasting machines, all manufactured by Sani-Blast, Inc. (Spring Grove, Minn.). ARCS' machines are automatic, have 100 percent dust control, and use Armex Blast Media, a soft crystalline form of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda. The water-soluble Armex is blasted at the rotating anilox roll at 30 psi. Upon impact, the 70-micron baking soda particles breakdown to as small as 8 microns, acting like little knives as they get inside the smallest cells to lift the inks away, said Jim Heffer, president of ARCS. The ARCS system cleans anilox roll sizes 4˝ up to and beyond 220˝, on- and off-press.