Stolle has announced that it has signed a partnership agreement with Sandon Global to exclusively sell its lightweight pneumatic plate and roll mounting systems for use with Stolle Concord and Rutherford Decorators.

The sales agreement was signed on 3 May on the Stolle stand at Metpack 2023 in Essen, Germany by Ian Scholey, chief technical officer of Stolle, Steve Higginson, executive vice president – Stolle Europe / Asia Pacific Group, and John Millington, CEO of Sandon Global.

The agreement gives Stolle exclusive rights to sell 3 cutting-edge products developed by Sandon Global for use on Stolle Decorators.

The three systems are designed to make changing the printing plates, the overvarnish gravure roll and the overvarnish applicator roll much safer, faster and easier for the decorator operator. Each system includes special mandrels that mount on the decorator just like the standard plate cylinders, gravure roll and applicator rolls currently do.

An air fitting on the mandrels compresses an internal air membrane that allows interchangeable sleeves to easily slide on and off of the mandrels. The mandrels have no moving parts and require zero maintenance.

A demonstration R&D model constructed by Sandon Global was exhibited at the Stolle stand at Metpack so that the sleeve change procedures could be demonstrated to Metpack attendees several times each day.

Each of the three patented/patent pending Sandon Global systems offer major benefits in health and safety due weight reduction, improved efficiency and increased productivity, the systems are:

• The MAGPRO System is the only pneumatic plate mounting system in the world.

The plate cylinder sleeve has magnets and pins for mounting the two printing plates used on each Concord print station.  Rather than having to remove the entire heavy plate cylinder weighing 14kgs (31Lbs) from the conical shaft, the operator only has to remove and install a much lighter magnetic sleeve weighing 5Kgs (11Lbs) with attached plates from the mandrel.

After the magnetic printing plate sleeve is installed and air pressure is released from the mandrel, the sleeve is interference locked securely in place to maintain accurate printing registration of the plates.

The time to change each MAGPRO magnetic sleeve is less than 2 minutes, with no requirement to pre-heat the cylinders from label change to label change which increases productivity and improves ROC.

• The GRAVLITE System was developed to make changing the overvarnish gravure roll safer, faster and easier.

The removable engraved sleeve cuts the weight to replace the roll from 24kg (52.9 lbs) for the entire gravure roll to 2.4kg (5 lbs) for the sleeve, making it much easier and safer for the decorator technician to replace the OV engraved sleeve.

In addition, the engravings on a GRAVLITE sleeve stay cleaner longer, resulting in more efficient lacquer transfer and increased coating quality. The estimated time for each gravure roll change is once again less than 2 minutes with this system.

Sandon has a range of specialised engravings to suit the needs of canmakers and achieve specified dry coat weight requirements and can design engravings for specific or specialised coatings.

• The GLIDEPRO Applicator System was developed to make changing the overvarnish applicator and includes a mandrel and a PU removable sleeve that easily removes and installs when air pressure is connected to the mandrel.

The accuracy of the GLIDEPRO sleeve (0.015 microns tir) reduces varnish consumption and slinging, coats efficiently with decreased applicator roll pressure which allows increased decorator speeds.

The system does not require any manual mandrel or PU sleeve adjustment due to the design which gives enhanced control of the TIR (Total Indicated Runout) and improves consistency of dry coat weight to the can. Again, changeover time for different can heights is less than 2 minutes.

According to Ian Scholey: “We are very pleased to enter into this agreement with Sandon Global to be able to offer their exciting lightweight fast change sleeve system technology to our customers.

“These three systems will make a huge improvement in the day-to-day decorator operations of 2-piece canmakers, saving them time and money while greatly increasing operator safety, efficiency and increased productivity.”