Fife Corp.

The Web Handling Research Center studies the science and technology that drive web handling. WEB HANDLING IS a science every packaging printer or converter should understand. It's applied physics that carries a continuous-roll substrate through printing and/or converting machines with the goal being a defect-free end product. The Web Handling Research Center (WHRC), based at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla., has spent the last 20 years studying this science. The WHRC was initiated in 1986 as a National Science Foundation center with a mission "to advance the knowledge base in technologies applicable to the transport and control of continuous-strip materials through processes and

As always, companies exhibiting at CMM International 2005 put on a display of impressive new products and technologies for converters and package printers. A SUCCESSFUL TRADE show is always measured on an individual basis—foot traffic, promising leads, or signed contracts. While attendees weren't exactly carried down the aisles in a swell of people, CMM International 2005 still offered a wide array of new products and technologies from the exhibiting companies. The following is a small sampling of what CMM International had to offer. Company news Enercon and Ciba Specialty Chemicals announced a joint development agreement which will combine Enercon's surface modification Plasma3™ technology

A look at today's cost-cutting web-handling technologies. TODAY'S PRESS OPERATORS don't have to be the fiddling wizards of yesteryear's press rooms. As technology continues to improve, operators have less tinkering to do in order to keep the web in register and maintain the appropriate tension control than compared to even a few years ago. Automatically adjusting edge detectors and rolls designed to mitigate web-troubling deflection, to name just a couple, make an operator's job that much easier. But even with the most advanced technology available, do all printers and converters need top-of-the-line web handling equipment? "If you define top-of-the-line equipment as expensive or

A web guide technology overview confirms the progression of electronic controls, automation and custom approaches. By Susan Friedman Hardly an unfamiliar concept, web guides are often a taken-for-granted component of presses and converting lines. A closer look at this technology's latest developments can help converters squeeze further efficiencies from even the most intricately tailored press configurations. Web guides' longevity hasn't completely wiped out usage misconceptions. When Allen Rausch, application engineering manager for BST Pro Mark, Elmhurst, IL, is in the field, he often sees guide sensors positioned too far within the exit span of the guide frame. To work best, sensors should be in