Flint unveils new corrugated plate

Nyloflex FTL Digital Flat Top Dot plate offers a hardness of 28
Nyloflex FTL Digital Flat Top Dot plate offers a hardness of 28

Flint Group has launched a new flexo plate that it claims offers the holy trinity of faster makereadies, improved quality and reduced costs.

The Nyloflex FTL Digital Flat Top Dot plate was developed for corrugated post-print applications, specifically where the substrates have a high recycled content and are printed with water-based inks.

The new plate is an evolution of the Nyloflex FTC Digital plate, which it will be sold alongside.

The Nyloflex FTL Digital Flat Top Dot plate offers a hardness of 28 compared to 32 of the harder FTC Digital variant.

According to Flint the new plate typically reduces set up times by 40% as it negates the need to create flat top dots through lamination or additional processing to reduce fluting.

“Since the launch of the Nyloflex FTC Digital in 2017 we already offer a valued flat top dot plate to the corrugated post-print market. It has proven to be very versatile with respect to substrates that it can cope with, delivering excellent highlights in combination with good fluting reduction.

“Due to its higher durometer it naturally reaches its limit though at the lowest end liner qualities," said Eva Freudenthaler, vice president of technology at Flint Group Flexographic.

“That is why we have supplemented our plate portfolio with the Nyloflex FTL supporting the continuing trend to more cost effective liners”.

Additionally, compared to “typical flexo plates” the new FTL plate also reduces operating costs and waste by enabling uses to run substrates with higher recycled fibre content and also save plate material by 50% and speed up registration times, according to Flint.