Sweep gold unique surface finishing technology

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 created a new process, which is a new sweeping 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) Hot stamping As a traditional process, its product has a strong metal texture, but it has a high energy consumption, a relatively low production efficiency, and a certain degree of difficulty in registering. When the hot stamping area is too large or too small, the quality is not easy to control.

The gravure printing is fast, but 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 gold sweeping speed is faster and the cost is lower, and no matter how thick or thin the picture is, the area size can achieve very fine results. At the same time, due to the use of fully enclosed working methods, it will not cause environmental pollution.

(2) Because metal particles are used as raw materials, the gold-sweeping products have more of a metallic sand grain effect and light diffuse reflection effect, which is closer to the original texture of the real metal. At the same time, the gold sweeping product gives people a clear three-dimensional visual sense, and 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, copper, green, graphite, tan, lemon yellow, peacock blue, etc., can be described as everything, and have different granularity, can show a wealth of The 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 produces a unique effect on the surface of the printed matter, but also has a certain anti-counterfeiting function because it is difficult to imitate. For example, the “Huangshan” brand cigarettes from the Anhui Kuang Cigarette Factory, only the red “Huangshan” which is packaged with gold-removal technology has not been counterfeited. Based on this, the sweeping process has also attracted the attention of packaging users such as wine, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.

Sweeping gold process

The current sweeping process is accomplished by a 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 gold mining process is as follows: Use a special PS plate to print a thin and uniform primer (commonly known as "sweeping gold") at the place where the printed material needs to be imitation gold through an offset press, and pass the printed material with the primer through the gold-sweeping machine paper. The transfer device 1 is sent to an eraser belt with a suction passage on the sweeper portion. A coating device consisting of a powder filling device 4, a DREISSIG applicator 3 with an ink fountain roller, and a coating roller 2 is started. The applicator roll slowly rotates. When the side of the applicator roll, which adsorbs gold powder, turns to the top of the paper, the part turns from inhalation to blowing, and the gold powder is evenly sprayed on the entire surface of the paper. Then, the four special polishers 5 were rubbed and polished with the powder on the paper, and the gold powder printed on the paper with the primer was firmly stuck on the paper. Four gilt strips 6 with or without suction channels reciprocate in opposite directions to remove excess powder. A high-vacuum adsorption multiple cleaning cycle system consisting of a front rubber cleaner 10 with an inhalation channel, a rear rubber cleaning roller 11 with an inhalation channel, an inhalation channel 9, an inhalation roller 7, and the like, removes excess gold powder on the paper. Adsorption, go to the powder filling device for recycling.

The development of sweep gold craft

Early implementation of sweep gold surface modification technology is to apply adhesive (animal glue, peach glue or mature paint, tung oil) to the site to be decorated according to graphic standards, and then evenly sprinkle the gold powder on it. After pressing and drying, sweep the excess gold powder to show a golden graphic effect.

The earliest use of gold-sweeping technology in China was in the 1930s and 1940s. The initial gold-sweeping technique was entirely manual. It was nothing more than an extremely simple tool such as pens, brushes, screens, and rubber rollers. The efficiency was extremely low, the environmental pollution was heavy, and the surface of the printed sheets after sweeping gold was not very clean. Easy to drop powder, imitation gold effect is not good. Therefore, manual sweeping has not been widely used and gradually replaced by a hot stamping process with a short processing cycle and mass reproduction.
In the 1950s and 1960s, China imported a small amount of Czech-made gold-sweeping machines. Its speed and quality have made great progress compared with the manual method. However, the problem of pollution has not yet been solved and the speed is still relatively low. Slow, eliminated after a few years.

Later, the German company EDMUND DREISSIG, the world's only automated gold-finish machine manufacturer, solved the problem of dust pollution to the maximum extent. At the same time, the sweeping speed was increased to nearly 8,000 sheets/hour, and even some specially-made machines were close to 9000 speeds. Zhang/hour. Since then, the gold sweeping process has gradually been widely used in Europe and even the world. From Cuban cigars, French wine and cosmetics, to Russia's vodka, the gold sweep process is widely used in the packaging of cigarettes, wine, cosmetics, chocolate, etc., as well as the printing of greeting cards, invitations, calendars, etc., making the value of the goods further The promotion brings good economic benefits to the user.

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 and the lack of market competition, there is little pressure on prices. 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 with the rapid development of China's accession to the WTO and commodity economy, the gold-sweeping process will achieve greater development.