Sound technical content, curated with aloha by
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ
The authoritative public forum
for Metal Finishing 1989-2024
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Chrome Plating Problems on Gravure Printing Cylinders/Rolls
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Q. Dear Sir/ Ma'am,
We are rotogravure cylinder manufacturer from India. We have observed very frequent issue of white cylinder worn out in very less quantity. Can someone share their experience on same and what could be solution to avoid this.
Thanks & Regards,
- Gujarat, India
June 8, 2013
by Robert K. Guffie
on AbeBooks
(rarely)
or eBay
(rarely)
or Amazon
(affil links)
A. Hi Parag. We appended your inquiry to a thread about the subject which should give you plenty of food for thought. If any comments sounds promising but need clarification for your particular case, please let us know. Thanks.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
A. Hi Parag,
white inks are usually the most abrasive inks and require bit more attention regarding print settings and surface finishing of rotogravure cylinders.
- Epping, VIC, Australia
Q. Good Day,
Regarding question about scum moisture problem on the Cyan Cylinder: mostly we are facing scum into the cylinder but, when we press the blade, scum is coming out, then after 5 to 10 mins is coming back again.
packaging - Lagos, Nigeria
September 17, 2013
A. Hi Leila,
Scumming problems can have various causes. Please review your engraving and chroming parameters, but also your print settings such as doctor blade, oscillation of doctor blade and the type of doctor blade.
Kind regards,
- Epping, VIC, Australia
Q. Is there a correlation of copper hardness to the chrome hardness, what I mean is if the copper has low hardness the chrome will also have a lower value than the normal on the gravure cylinder?
Alexander ARIOLA- Batangas City, Philippines
October 21, 2013
by Clarence H. Peger
(You're unlikely to find this for sale ... but copies are in select libraries)
from AbeBooks
* rarely available *
or eBay
* rarely available *
or
Amazon
* rarely available *
(affil links)
Chrome pitting issue
Q. We manufacture gravure rolls. I'm facing chrome pitting problem. Please suggest to me.
Chromic acid-250 gpl
Sulfuric acid-2.5 gpl
Trivalent chrome-3.5
hardness-990 hv
calalyst-170
Crack-1850
Should I increase or decrease any of above mentioned for reducing chrome pitting?
plating shop employee - Rudrapur, US, Nagar
January 12, 2014
Q. We are facing small dents (sometimes damage in the non image area) on the printing Cylinder after engraving and also after chrome the cylinder in the image area or non image area!! What are the process or technique to fill-up the dent or damaged area except polishing by emery paper?
SUJIT DAS- Kolkata, W.B., India
January 14, 2014
Ink lines on gravure cylinder
Q. We are facing a problem of ink lines occurred on non-engraved area of gravure cylinder. This happens mainly when the printer runs the cylinders beyond 140 m/min. speed.
Can any one suggest the possible cause and idea to get rid of it?
- Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
January 31, 2014
A. Hi,
You need to be more specific regarding ink lines, they could be hazing, scumming, color streak and/or drag out. Also the tone density of these ink lines are important since this leaves the clue of what could be the root cause.
- Chonburi, Thailand
A. Hi!
I'm in a big company that produces printing cylinder in China, so maybe I will analyze it more from the printing cylinder.
The possible causes as follows:
1. wound in the surface of printing cylinder --
- check the surface of printing cylinder; if find wound you can re plate with chrome.
2. the polishing is not good on surface of the printing cylinder --
- you can polish the surface with fine sandpaper when the printing cylinder is rotating in the printing press, but you must be careful and not to injure the printing cylinder.
- you also can ask the printing cylinder factory to polish it again.
3. dirt on surface of the printing cylinder --
- you can clean the printing cylinder with some cleanout fluid; sometimes the printing material will also make the printing cylinder soiled when printing.
4. doctor blade(very important) --
- doctor blade have a gap sometimes, Maybe you can try with a new doctor blade
5.ink (very important) --
- ink particle size is too big.
You need make dilution for ink or other ways
6. the printing material
- such as the printing material is paper.
7. the quality of printing cylinder, such as quality of chromium, the balance of dynamic balance, the printing cylinder is not very round --
- so maybe you can ask the printing cylinder to make a better polishing on the surface of printing cylinder. It is also good to engrave a very very light pattern on the part of non-engraved area of gravure cylinder, sometimes it can avoid the ink line or white dot.
The above is only my opinion. This is my private opinion and a reference only.
produce all kinds of printing cylinders - Donggguan city,China
Chrome scumming on gravure unit
Q. We have an issue of chrome polishing (scumming) on the cyan unit. It is more frequently happening on one unit (7) on the wire side of the unit and not as frequent as unit 2 the smooth side. The ratio is 5 2 1. They have increased the catalyst to harden the chrome, and the ink grind is less than 1 µm. We have added PTFE and castor oil as a slip additive which has shown a slight improvement but problem still persists. Any recommendations?
David Meeserprinting inks - Cape Town Western Cape South Africa
October 3, 2014
Chrome is "Frosting" on wbore gravure cylinders
Q. I work for a gravure company that manufactures print cylinders. We use wbore and shafted style cylinders . All of a sudden whenever we chrome a wbore cylinder it frosts. The shafted cylinders come out fine. We've replaced and checked all the connections and everything looks okay. Any ideas?
Thanks
Donald
- Canterbury, Connecticut
October 7, 2014
? Hi Donald. A pic might help as I'm not sure we all envision the same thing when you say "frosting" -- that sounds to me like "burning". I'm not familiar with the term "wbore", but from context it sounds like a hollow cylinder?
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Q. We are facing shade problem after printing 20000 meters. So please give me the solution as early as possible.
Muhammad Tariq- Lahore,Pakistan
April 12, 2015
At the moment I just want to say that I am really glad I found this forum. I read all the comments and I must say they were all very very helpful, so I made a point wise summary.
Cheers,
PIP PVT LTD - Lahore, Punjab. Pakistan
April 29, 2015
----
Ed. note: Thank you for the kind note. This site is about people helping each other, and hopefully having some fun at it too. One of the best ways to learn is to try to teach because when we attempt to teach we usually quickly learn that we didn't know things as clearly as we thought we did :-)
Scumming problem: picking up ink in non-image areas
by Gravure Education Foundation
on AbeBooks
or Amazon
(affil links)
Q. We are facing scumming problem in all the CMYK of an eight color job. This job is new and running for the first time. We have changed the ink, rubbed the emery paper and changed the solvents too. We are still facing this problem. The cylinder is picking up ink in non image area. How can it be solved?
Shikhar AgrawalPrabhat Rotopack Pvt. Ltd. - Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, India
October 9, 2015
Q. Hi everyone!
It has been a week or so that we've actually run into a problem in our very company. Our company produces prepress stuffs especially Gravure cylinders. As I told, it has been a week that we've got problems with our cylinders. they have fault gaps on them, you know!
We have no idea where these gaps come from.
I can see most of the people in this community are professional in printing industry, so any help would be appreciated.
- Tabriz,Iran
November 21, 2015
Rust Formation of Hard Chrome Plated rotogravure cylinder
Q. We are rotogravure cylinder manufacturer. Our one customer complaining rusting (corrosion) problems on hard chrome on our gravure cylinder. I want to know how cause this problem? Is it manufacturing defect? Or is it careless maintenance from customer. What is the reason for rusting or corrosion. Please give the answer.
DINESH PATELVED GRAPHICS INDUSTRIES - HMEDABAD,GUJARAT, INDIA
December 31, 2015
A. Hi Dinesh,
Rusting is a process that happens to iron and steel, not hard chrome plating. A good description of the fault (preferably with photos) would help people determine (or at least guide you) the possible faults and potential rectifications.
Without much evidence here are a couple of guesses at what could be the problem:
Thin coating, base steel roller is corroding
Poor rinsing after hard anodising, leaving chromic acid to leach out (can look like rust)
More information will help you get a better answer though.
Aerospace - Yeovil, Somerset, UK
Q. Hi, chroming problems are an ongoing problem but only happen on our key cylinders. We apply nickel on sides to try to prevent wear -- is this practice common? All the specs regarding the chrome solution are 100% and the Rz is between 0.4 to 0.6.
Thanks
Printing gravure - South Africa
May 25, 2016
Q. Hi All
I am from printing manufacturing, but we make our own cylinders by taking base cell from suppliers. I would like to know how much amount of nickel should I deposit on base cell? What should be the exact concentration of my nickel bath?
Concentration of copper bath? Mechanical and chemical properties of base cell?
- Pune, Maharashtra, India
July 12, 2016
Q. Hi,
I am facing problem on cylinders. After hard chrome plating, pit marks are observed near print messages. How can we avoid these pit marks?
How to resolve this problem?
ACG Metalcrafts Pvt. Ltd. - Pune, Maharashtra, India
September 15, 2016
by Herbert Mills Cartwright
on AbeBooks
or Amazon
(affil links)
Q. Hi gentlemen,
this is Gva from flexible packaging.
I have a four color job. How can I calculate the life of the cylinder?
Colors: Green (Text), Red, By Cyan, Yellow
How many meters can I run?
Also, I am continuously facing lines coming while printing in Green and Bg Cyan. Why is it coming? Even if I re-engrave, also after 3 MT it's forming with lines.
- Bangalore, Karnataka, India
March 28, 2017
Hard chrome plated rotogravure cylinder surface is oxidized and white rust observed
Q. The chrome plating on Rotogravure printing cylinder chrome is oxidized -- the complete face. In practical words, explain how to stop chrome plating cylinder oxidization and white rust and white pitted spots on cylinder surface. What is the controlled method for all problems?
Cylinder specification --
Hard copper plating thickness min 350 micron
Hardness of cylinder 200 to 220 vic,
Hard chrome plating thickness is 8 to 10 micron
Hardness mentioned of hard chrome plating 900 to 1050.
After printing the cylinder is cleaned with acetone
⇦ this on
eBay
or
Amazon
[affil links] Warning! highly Flammable!
and wrapped with plastic/paper and stored; we observe cylinder surface white rust and oxidation of the surface.
Product designer - Pune, Maharashtra, India
July 15, 2017
A. Hi,
I am guessing that you don't wipe the cylinders again after you clean them with Acetate solvent? Keep in mind that acetate reacts with humid environments to become acetic acid
⇦ this on
eBay
or
Amazon [affil links] and can migrate through the microcrack layers to the copper, causing an adhesion issue which later results into popping off the chrome layer.
Helio Asia Ltd - Pluakdaeng, Thailand
Q. Hi Gentlemen,
I am from cylinder engraving house in KSA. Because of lots of complaints regarding chrome peel-off issue from our customer, we decided to change the chrome layer from 8 microns to 10 microns.
Our finger print cylinder were done with 8 microns. Now if I change it to 10 micron for new job, will it affect the colors at printing press?
- Riyadh, KSA
November 24, 2017
Q. We have a line cracking on printing...so there is something like a line in a output design.
farnod asadi- iran, tabriz
January 6, 2019
Tip: Readers can learn from your situation
but not from an abstract question, so
most readers just skip past them.
Q. Hi Mr. Dominik Michalek,
I appreciate your suggestion. Acetate solvent is very common solvent for cylinder cleaning. Could you please suggest alternative option of acetate solvent?
November 5, 2019
- gujarat, India
Q. My name is Morris MUSAU from Kenya
I work in a gravure printing company but we have a problem with our cylinders, we have two suppliers but one suppliers cylinders have big problems 1 after printing we always wash the cylinders and keep them in a store even we always oil and rap them, but in the next run we find the chrome has peeled off in some areas, but the other supplier cylinders are ok even after long runs and stored we always find them to be ok and good for the next run so we don't know what is the problem with this one supplier when we ask they keep telling us the cylinders are okay and they meet the standards and quality please help because you always throw them in the same area
- Nairobi, kenya
July 1, 2020
Q. Hi.Recently we had been encountered continuous problems in chrome cylinder. During production run, we had been noticed that cylinder (magenta) had visible line. We checked the inks but we didn't find any hard particles on it. We checked also the blade pressure and set up and it was okay.
We need your suggestions on how we can trouble shoot this problem
Thank you.
- Malabon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
August 16, 2020
Q. It is now 7 yrs at our company that we face lines on the printed areas what is it that causes this lines we polish the cylinders and also we filter INKS but they still appear most especially on white surfaces lines poo f cyan and blue mostly. Please help me on this to solve the issue.
Bonface Lagat- Nairobi Nairobi Kenya
February 21, 2021
A. Please check the roughness of chrome which should be between Rz 0.3 to 0.4 also change the ink supplier.
Farhan Shafique- Lahore Pakistan
June 2, 2021
A. There are 3 cause of lining:
Inks have dry resin insolubles in solvents.
Cylinder chrome is coming off or cylinder has permanent damage.
Inks should be filtered through 200 mesh clean the trays
then try it, or ask ink company for their solvent combination .
Regards,
Ink Technologist - Australia
August 5, 2021
Q. Hi everyone,
I'm chetan from India, we make rotogravure cylinder. From some time we are facing problems related to depth.
We didn't change any parameters in engraving.
If we do a remake job in that we follow the same setting but the new cylinder can't run as long compared to to old one.
Is that there is problems in chrome.
Please give any suggestion
Employees - India pune
December 26, 2021
Q. Hi, I work at a Cylinder gravure manufacturer in the province of East Java, Indonesia. The problem we often face is pinholes on the final chrome plating. This problem severely hinders the delivery of the Cylinders to the printer. Maybe there are suggestions or ideas for a solution to my problem? Thank you.
Kamandanu Putra- Indonesia Jawa timur
March 28, 2021
? Hi Kamandanu,
Did you check that pinholes are already in copper? They are visible after chrome plating?
Please share picture of this problem.
- Lahore, Pakistan
January 16, 2022
Q. HOW CAN I REMOVE CHROME FROM COPPER ENGRAVING CYLINDER?
We are processing with this bath composition:
for 100 lt:
35 lt sulfuric acid
6 lt decomposition solution
But our cylinders' surface taking brownish black colour.
Francois Martin- France Bordeaux Merignac
September 28, 2022
A. Hi Francois.
I am not familiar with stripping chrome plating with sulfuric acid, and I don't know what your 'decomposition solution' is. The methods that I am familiar with are hydrochloric acid or anodic stripping in caustic soda ⇦liquid caustic soda in bulk on
Amazon [affil link]
.
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
Q. Dear sir
Want to know about the variation in chrome thickness like as at one edge of cylinder is 15 micron in middle is 7 to 8 micron and another edge 13-14 micron but major issue is in middle; its variation is 7-8 micron on single cylinder in auto-plant of chrome plating ... its difference is more than 5-7 micron in coupling of cylinder on same size.
Parameters of machine is below
C.D=65 Amp/dm2
Temp=70 °C
Chromic acid =250-260 gm/l
Sulphate ratio is 1:100
What to do now?
Am working a shift in-charge or plating in-charge - From india
February 13, 2023
A. Hi Gaurav. Your parameters sound reasonable to me. I don't know the anode arrangement in your automatic plant, but the chrome goes where the current goes; and at risk of slight simplification, the current takes the path of least resistance. It seems that somehow you need more anodes closer to the cylinder at the middle, and fewer anodes or further from the ends.
Luck & Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
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