Intaglio printer

#The present invention is directed to an intaglio printer having a form cylinder and a printing cylinder. A screen cylinder is used to transfer ink to the form cylinder. A collecting cylinder can be associated with the form cylinder.

#EP 03 43 106 A2 has disclosed a printer with an engraved intaglio printing plate, which is disposed on a form cylinder. A printing cylinder, in which the engraved intaglio printing plate can be simultaneously used as a wet offset printing plate for an additional offset printing unit is also provided.

#A printer with an intaglio printing unit that has a form cylinder and a printing cylinder is also known from EP 03 51 366 B1. In this printer, the intaglio printing unit is combined with an indirectly functioning printer unit from which sheets printed by it are fed with the aid of an interposed sheet-feeding apparatus.

#Preferred embodiments of the present invention are shown in the drawings and will be described in detail below.

#FIG. 1 shows a schematic side elevation sectional view through a first preferred embodiment of an intaglio printer in accordance with the present invention;

#FIG. 2 shows a corresponding side elevation sectional view through a second preferred embodiment of the intaglio printer of the present invention;

#The first preferred embodiment of the intaglio printer of the present invention, shown in a schematic section in FIG. 1, has a number of inking units 8, each of which inking units 8 cooperates with an associated master or pattern cylinder 4 and each of which inking units 8 transfers a separate colored ink to raised areas of the associated master or pattern cylinder 4. The several master or pattern cylinders 4, in turn, cooperate with a collecting cylinder 6 to which they each transfer the colored ink that they have received from the respective inking units 8 associated with them. In this manner, a multicolor ink pattern is produced on the collecting cylinder 6, whose colored zones respectively correspond to the raised areas of the several master or pattern cylinders 4.

#The collecting cylinder 6, in turn, cooperates with a form cylinder 2, e.g. a plate cylinder 2, on which intaglio printing plates are mounted, in particular steel engraved intaglio printing plates. These intaglio printing plates on the form cylinder 2 are inked during in contact with the collecting cylinder 6 in accordance with the last inking pattern produced on the collecting cylinder 6. The printing ink on the collecting cylinder 6, as that ink passes through the nip between the plate cylinder 2 and the collecting cylinder 6, is essentially pressed into etched or engraved fine channels 11 on the intaglio printing plate on form cylinder 2, which etched or engraved fine channels 11 correspond to a detailed pattern to be printed on the print stock. In the production direction, after the nip defined by the form cylinder 2 and the collecting cylinder 6, i.e. in the clockwise direction, as shown in FIG. 1, there is a wiping device 3, which removes the remainder of the printing ink, which has not found space in the fine channels 11, from the surface of the form or plate cylinder 2.

#A screen printing cylinder 7 of a screen printing unit is disposed against the circumference of the plate cylinder 2, after the wiping device 3. This screen printing cylinder 7 applies a screen printing ink to large recesses 12 formed in the printing plates of the form or plate cylinder 2, which printing plates have already had the printing ink applied to the fine channels 11 by the collecting cylinder 6 and have been wiped by the wiping device 3.