Investigation of the Effect of Press and Paper Variables on Linting during the Offset Printing of Newsprint

The effect of printing take-off angle, ink tack, print coverage (printing tone) and paper two sidedness on linting in offset printing were investigated with printing trials conducted on a small commercial Heidelberg GTO-52 and a large commercial Man-Roland Uniset press. The take-off angle at which the web exits the printing nip was found to have the largest influence on lint, with the lint weight increasing five fold when the take-off angle was increased from 27 degrees to 153 degrees. The increase in take-off angle also increased the size of particles that were removed as lint. The maximum linting was found to occur at a print coverage of 25%. The lint produced was approximately independent of ink tack when tack ranged from 4 to 9. However lint increased when the ink tack was increased to 13.5.