Cardboard
Cardboard packaging is commonly used to provide rigidity and robustness to protect the product inside the, often box-shaped, packaging. The applications vary from cereal boxes and luxury boxes for liquors and cosmetics to liquid container packaging used for juices, milk, and sauces.
Cardboard is a very thick material, often over 500 microns, with higher strength and more rigidity than paper. There is a large variety in thickness and composition of cardboard, depending on the amount of protection required. This can include PE and aluminum layers for liquid products for optimal barrier performance. In addition, there is a variety in look and feel in the case of luxury packaging and pharmaceutical packaging.
Cardboard printing
It’s easy to imagine that getting ink on a substrate works differently when comparing very thin packaging film to a factor 10 to 20 thicker cardboard substrate. Printing both, film substrates and cardboard, on the same press is challenging as both have quite different material thicknesses and surface conditions.
Printing on cardboard requires a somewhat different press set-up, specifically a different cylinder stacking within printing units. Guide and idler rollers require larger diameters to prevent overstretching and mechanical damage to the outer layers of the cardboard. Web-tension management and un- and rewinding require dedicated modules.
DG press has longtime experience in the field of designing and building web offset printing presses dedicated to cardboard printing, including press configurations for roll-to-roll, sheet & stack, and die-cut and stack.