Flexo printing: 5 reasons tesa® Twinlock is a powerful solution

Flexographic printing runs fast and hard and begs for adhesive that can hold on for the duration. Long runs or short runs, you know how it goes: sleeve/cylinder + tape + plate. That tape in the middle’s got a pretty important job to do, and if it doesn’t do it well, well…

You’ll have a pretty lousy print job to show for it.

So you’ve got to have adhesive that’s strong and tacky enough to hold the sleeves and plates together through the vibrations and bounces of a flexo printing press. But you also want tape that’s not so gummy it takes a bristle pad to get the residue off. A sub-par adhesive like that might even ruin your sleeves altogether, and you can’t have that.

Maybe you’re in a setting where sizes and graphics are consistent. What if we told you for printing environments like that, there’s an innovative solution that’s worth a look? That there’s no need to worry about tape that doesn’t pull away clean. And no sticky residue or inconsistencies in thickness.

Let’s talk for a minute about tesa® Twinlock.

But first, you may be wondering what tesa® Twinlock even is, and being the tape nerds we are, we can hardly wait to introduce it to you!

So… here goes!

It’s a one-of-a-kind, reusable, self-adhesive, and compressible plate mounting sleeve or cylinder made for the flexographic printing market. Does that sound fantastic or what?

If you said, “yes,” you may just be a tape nerd, too!

Check out these five reasons tesa® Twinlock might be the solution for your flexo printing needs:

 

1. Reusability = A Win for Sustainability

 

For all the eco-conscious flexographic printers and your customers out there, notice we said it’s reusable. And we mean that. The tesa® Twinlock-coated sleeve or cylinder can be used over and over again to mount plates without using any tape.

Plate mounting tapes are typically used once and tossed, but tesa® Twinlock stays on the base sleeve throughout its life cycle. And that’s the biggest difference between the two.

The repeated usability of tesa® Twinlock means a much longer life span. As long as press operators keep the base sleeve in good condition, there’s practically no limit to how many times you can use it.

And on a side note… Keeping the layer in good condition is easy to do. It’s just a matter of cleaning tesa® Twinlock layer with our activator solution between uses, and then plates can be reapplied for as long as the base sleeve is maintained well.

And that all adds up to a sustainable solution that’s worth talking about!

 

2. Time and Cost Saving

 

As we mentioned above, plate mounting tape is used once and then thrown away. That means press operators are continually having to replace it. With tesa® Twinlock, there’s no replacing anything. Stick the plate on the tesa® Twinlock sleeve, and go run your job!

Plus, with a polyurethane (PU) foam layer that has a consistent and reliable open cell structure, on-press adjustments are minimal.

Talk about saving time! And money…

 

3. Quicker Return on Investment (ROI)

 

This aspect perhaps goes without saying… but we’ll say it anyway.

When you’re consistently saving time and money (because you don’t have to buy tape anymore), you get a quicker ROI, and tesa® Twinlock offers just that. For some of our customers, they’ve seen it in less than two years on a set of sleeves. Some are even seeing it in as little as three months (yes, months, this is not a typo!!)

The ROI is really dependent on the conditions of use, but a reusable mounting sleeve has the potential to maximize ROI.

Contact us to calculate your customized ROI

 

4. Permanent Adhesion

 

No changes. Ever. Just print. Clean and activate the layer. Print again. Then repeat…. as often as needed.

And when the moment comes that your tesa Twinlock® sleeve needs a fresh coat of tack, it’ll keep performing flawlessly for print run after print run after print run after … (you get the point).

 

5. Consistency

The PU foam’s open cell structure minimizes the need for on-press adjustments and maximizes the layer’s ability to absorb bounce in the printing process.

Together these qualities result in consistency and exceptionally high-quality printing. Over and over.

On a side note, size is never a problem because we laser-measure multiple times throughout the process to ensure the final size is precise. And consistent.
 

tesa® Twinlock won’t be the right solution for every printer or every situation. It works really well when the sizes and the graphics are consistent, where flexo printers don't need a lot of different tape densities or hardnesses.

On the other hand, plate mounting tape still performs well when the graphics and press sizes change a lot because the tape hardness also needs to change to compensate for that.

A lot of places now have a hybrid approach where sometimes they're using tape and at other times, they're using tesa® Twinlock. We imagine a hybrid approach as the way of the future!

For more information on sustainable solutions for flexographic printing, channel your inner tape nerd and read more about tesa® Twinlock.