Paper dust

Hello people, for quite some time, I have the headache of paper dust contaminating the press that produces hickeys on solids and specks of lint on blankets, along with dust on different places -feed board etc-.

We usually print mat/satin paper varying from 150 gsm to 350 and use 2 brands -from time to time 3-.

Our guillotine is Polar 72EM with steel knife and this happens even with freshly sharpened knife.

I trim at all sides, use a cloth to wipe away the stack, blow stack on press with air but still i get this problem.

 

My best suggestion would be to only purchase paper thats already sized to your needs. If you must cut paper, before running on press, it is advisable to "back trim" only of the edges that need cutting. There is rarely a reason why you would need to cut more than a single dimension. Cutting a sheet in half would require 2 cuts. Your first cut would be to final size for the stack that is in the throat of your cutter. This stack of paper gets placed on a skid as ready to go, being mindful of what edge has been cut. The other half of the sheet that has been placed aside on the cutter now gets spun around 180 degrees so that your cutting the already cut edge with the "back" of the knife. When placing this stack on a skid you must also place it so that the cut edges of both halves are in a common location. Its at this point that you would wipe only the cut edges with tack rag.

 

The sharpening of the cutting knives must comply with the standard, the sharpening angle differs from one paper to another.
Also you may have this problem if the cardboard is of poor quality (recycled cardboard)

 

I know on a web press when we have problems with slitter dust (rolls of paper are slit at the mill when wound) we will wipe down the sides of the rolls with a wet rag to remove the slit dust from the sides to help. Maybe wiping down the cut sides of the sheets when stacked on the skid before loading it may help

 

Does your press have Vario or equivalent hicky picker?

 

Now i am working on another press but it was a dry waterless press so Vario and hickey picker were non existent. Thank you for your input though

 

There are rollers available that would go into the first ink form roller slot that are designed to "pick" debris off of the plate. Here in the States they are called hickey pickers. The most common and I feel most effective are made by a company called Rodell. They manufacture the roller to have a rough surface that creates a pulling action that will remove hickeys within a few revolutions of the cylinder. The only downside to these hickey rollers are that they must be regularly removed from the press and cleaned by hand, in order to remove all the built up junk. After thorough cleaning they must then be roughed up with either a scotchbrite pad or some sandpaper. Ive found them to be quite effective when proper maintenance is observed. Another downside would be that they require a longer wash-up cycle to get clean when switching from a darker color to a lighter color as they tend to hold on to the pigment.

 

you must respect the sharpening angle of the blade according to the type of cardboard or paper you are using. here is a table to respect
And replace the quality of your cardboard