Dry Offset Printing
The Dry Offset Printing Process provides the most efficient method for high speed, large volume printing of multi-colored line copy, half-tones & full process art on preformed plastic parts. Dry offset printing is used primarily to print on products such as tapered cups, tubs & pails as well as tubes, jars & their respective closures (caps & lids).
Dry offset printing is similar to offset lithography in that a rubber blanket is used to transfer the image from the printing plate to the container surface. As in the letterpress, the plate used has the image area raised above the surface of the plate. Ink is distributed through a series of rollers onto the raised surface of the plate.
The plate transfers the image to the rubber blanket, which prints the entire multicolored copy taken from one (1) to as many as eight (8) plate cylinders on the container in one operation. The “Dry” denotation of this offset system serves to differentiate it from the offset system, which uses the incompatibility of water inks to “dampen” the surface of the plate or substrate to prevent ink transfer.