The post-press advantages of sweep gold

With the development of economy, the packaging of goods has received more and more attention from people. In order to make the packaging of goods more noble, increase the added value of goods, many packaging and printing companies like to use the imitation gold effect on the packaging of goods. This gave birth to a new process - the gold sweep process. Sweeping gold is a special post-printing process. It attaches special metal powders to specific parts of commodity packaging or label prints to achieve gold glitter effects.

The advantages of sweeping gold

Compared with other finishing processes that produce metallic effects, the gold sweeping process has its unique advantages.

(1) The metal texture of the product is very strong, but the energy consumption is high, the production efficiency is relatively low, and the registration has a certain degree of difficulty. When the hot stamping area is too large or too small, the quality is not easy to control.

The full speed of the gravure printing is fast, and the metal texture is not strong enough when printing large areas of gold. The deformation is relatively serious when printing small characters or thin lines. The speed of sweep is faster and the cost is lower, regardless of the thickness of the text. Area size can get fine results. Due to the fully enclosed working method, no pollution is caused to the environment.

(2) Because of the use of metal particles as raw materials, the gold-sweeping products are more metallic sand grains and diffuse reflection effects, which are closer to the original texture of real metal. The gold sweeping product gives people a distinct three-dimensional visual appearance, feels smooth on the touch, and has a unique surface finish.

(3) The gold powder used is rich in color, such as gold. Silver, red gold, bronze, green. Graphite color. Tan, lemon yellow. Peacock blue, etc., and with different granularity, can show a rich color. Currently in North America and Europe, a kind of gold powder with diamond effect has begun to be popularized. The gold powder has 4 kinds of particle diameters and 10 colors. It can make the decoration and graphics shine like light diamonds, which reflects the multicolored light. Unique effect.

(4) The gold-sweeping process has unique effects on the surface of the printed matter, and it also has a certain anti-counterfeiting function because it is difficult to imitate. Based on this, the gold-sweeping process has attracted the attention of packaging users such as wine, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

Sweeping process

The gold sweeping process is accomplished by a gold sweeper and is usually processed online with a sheet-fed double (multi-color) offset press. After the special PS version of the gold sweeper is produced according to the offset color separation film, it is installed on the offset printing press and the registration work is completed by adjusting the rules of the offset printing press. ,

The gold sweeper is mainly composed of paper feeding mechanism, coating mechanism, polishing mechanism, cleaning mechanism, and delivery mechanism. The process flow is as follows: a special PS plate is used to print a thin and uniform primer ("sweeping the gold coating") at the imitation gold part of the printed matter through an offset printing press, and the printed material with the underprinted material is passed through a gold-sweeping machine paper conveying device. Send it to a rubber conveyor belt with a suction channel. The coating apparatus consists of a powder filling device, an applicator with ink fountain roller, and a coating roller. The applicator roll rotates. When the side of the applicator roll where the gold powder is adsorbed is transferred to the top of the paper, this part is switched from inhalation to air blowing, and the gold powder is uniformly sprayed on the surface of the paper. The four special polishers rubbed and polished with the gold powder on the paper, and the gold powder printed on the paper with the primer was stuck on the paper. Four metal strips, with or without suction channels, reciprocate in opposite directions to remove excess powder. The high vacuum adsorption multiple cleaning cycle system consisting of a front rubber cleaner with an inhalation channel, a rear rubber cleaning roller with an inhalation channel, an inhalation channel, an aspiration roller and the like adsorbs excess gold powder on the paper and transfers it to the gold powder. The filling device is recycled.

The development of sweep gold craft

The earliest use of gold-sweeping technology in China was in the 1930s and 1940s. The initial period was completely manual operation, the efficiency was extremely low, and the environmental pollution was heavy. After the gold sweep, the surface of printed sheets was not clean, and the imitation gold effect was not good. In the 1950s and 1960s, China had imported a small amount of Czech gold-sweeping machines. Although the speed and quality have made great progress compared with manual work, the pollution problem has not yet been solved and the speed is still relatively slow.

Later, the German company EDMUND DREISS]G, the world's only manufacturer of automated sweepers, solved the problem of dust pollution, raising the speed of sweeps to nearly 8,000 shots/hour, or even nearly 9,000 shots/hour. Since then, the gold sweeping process has been widely used in Europe and even the world. The gold sweeping process is widely used in the packaging of cigarettes, wine, cosmetics, chocolate, etc., as well as the printing of greeting cards, invitations, calendars, etc., so as to further enhance the value of the goods.

At present, in the South China and East China regions, which account for a large proportion of China's packaging and printing processing, there are five printing plants that have introduced eight automatic gold-sweeping devices to engage in gold-sweeping processing, which is mainly based on anti-counterfeit packaging of cigarettes. In China, due to the relatively small number of sweepers, market competition is not fierce, and price pressure is not significant. In addition, the sweep gold products have unique anti-counterfeit features and advertising effects, and at the same time, the cost of sweeps is relatively low. Therefore, the printing manufacturers can obtain higher profits. It is believed that as China's accession to the WTO and the rapid development of the commodity economy, the gold mining process will achieve greater development.