Basestock Influences on Coated Board Surface and Print Quality, 2003 Spring Technical Conference Proceedings

Coated board is used mainly for consumer packaging and therefore the surface of the board is usually printed. Often the surface appearance of the packaging is an integral part of the message the producer wants to communicate to the end-user. Therefore, if a package is designed for a luxury product with a worldwide brand, it is not possible to use board with an uneven and rough surface.

When producing a high quality product, one prerequisite is to start with a smooth and stable baseboard that is not negatively influenced by the water that is applied with the coating. The base should have a suitable roughness for coating and be flat. The final coated surface should ideally have a surface that is absolutely free from surface structure.

The aim of this work was to study the impact of the baseboard surface properties on the surface structure and printing properties of coated packaging board. The baseboard was treated by using different calendering technologies prior to blade coating and followed by soft calendering. Board samples were printed by using sheet-fed offset printing and surface properties were evaluated.