| abstract |
The present invention is directed to a method for producing a high gloss coating on a printed surface. An aqueous coating composition in pan (1) is deposited onto a surface to be printed using rollers (3, 5) and coating cylinder (9) whose blanket roller coating face has a low energy, non-stick, smooth surface profile on which coating blanket (7) is formed. Simultaneous with the deposition of aqueous coating onto a substrate, or shortly thereafter, pressure between cylinders (9, 10) at nip (11), either alone or in combination with heat may be applied to the coating in order to create a substantially tack-free surface conforming to the surface of the coating face. The substrate is fed to cylinder (10), via cylinder (15) and removed by cylinder (16). By using a highly polished coating face, high gloss coatings may be obtained using this methodlogy in a number of traditional printing techniques including wet trap inline sheet-fed printing, heat-set offset printing, dry trap inline flexographic printing, offset web-fed printing and gravure printing. Coatings which are produced utilizing the present invention have high gloss values heretofore unobtainable using aqueous coating compositions. |