COMPRESSIBLE PLY FOR PRINTING BLANKETS

摘要

2132735 9318913 PCTABS00025 A laminated printing blanket (5) having compressible and resilient properties and a method for its production are provided. The compressible characteristics are provided by disposing an intermediate layer (10) having substantially uniformly distributed voids (30) of substantially uniform size between the base ply (25) and the working surface (15) of the printing blanket. The voids (30) of the compressible intermediate layer (10) are formed by introducing high melting point microspheres formed from thermoplastic resins into an elastomeric matrix (35), coating said microsphere containing elastomeric matrix (35) upon an upper surface of the base ply (25) and then vulcanizing the coated base ply at a temperature of between about 80-150 ·C for between about one and six hours to form the compressible layer having substantially uniform compression characteristics. Once all of the layers of the blanket are stacked, a final vulcanization treatment completes the curing of all the layers to produce a laminated printing blanket.