PRESS DRYING/CURING--The ABCs of Press Drying

"Generally a printer will put in the system best suited to his production," Chapman remarks. "Points that should be considered whether to go IR or UV will depend on end-result requirements."

Another vendor that praises the benefits of UV curing is Prime UV. The company was founded 14 years ago when UV curing was primarily used on sheetfed and label presses. To make the transition to today's web offset presses, Prime UV had to develop a high-intensity, finely focused UV dryer that could be installed on commercial web and high-speed direct mail presses running 2,000 fpm, as well as folding carton and flexo packaging presses running at 1,500 fpm. Because of this development, the UV printing process has become the drying system of choice for all direct mail, security printing, sheetfed offset printing on plastic substrates and folding carton web printing.