Compressible printing blanket

A compressible printing blanket comprising, a woven base ply, a rubber printing face, and a compressible body disposed between said base ply and said printing face, said compressible body comprising a nitrile rubber matrix having voids disposed therein substantially uniformly and a plurality of needle-punched layers of discontinuous polyester fibers bonded together by said matrix as a single mass, each of said layers having its fibers disposed in substantially parallel relation and substantially uniformly throughout the layer with the fibers in each layer being disposed transverse and against the fibers of an adjoining layer to define a compacted sheet of oriented discrete fibers which results in a uniform embedment of fibers throughout said matrix, said uniform embedment of said fibers resulting in said uniform disposal of said voids and providing more precise control of the compression and resiliency characteristics of said body at each location throughout, said body assuring satisfactory operation of said blanket with said blanket operating with an interference between said blanket and associated printing means ranging between four and eleven mils, said voids comprising between about 40-60% of the volume of the compressible body.