Method for conditioning/heat treatment
AssigneeEastman Kodak Company
InventorsDavide F. Tenaglia, Ken-Ichi Shimazu
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method for heat treatment of printing plates includes arranging a plurality of printing plates into a stack, interspersing a plurality of thermally conductive plates at a plurality of levels in the stack, and placing the stack of plurality of printing plates with the interspersed conductive plates in an ambient of heated medium, wherein the conductive plates are larger laterally than the printing plates such that portions of the top and bottom surfaces of the conductive plates are exposed to the ambient of heated medium and thereby collect and conduct heat into the interior regions of the stack where the conductive plates are in thermal contact with, heating the interior regions up at a higher rate than would be achieved without the conductive plates in place.
Claims11
A method of heat treating printing plates comprising:
- (a) arranging a plurality of printing plates and at least one thermally conductive plate into an interleaved stack, the at least one thermally conductive plate abutting one of the plurality of printing plates on each side thereof, wherein each of the printing plates has a first perimeter and the at least one thermally conductive plate has a second perimeter, the second perimeter extending beyond the first perimeter in the interleaved stack such that the at least one thermally conductive plate yields a fin projecting from the interleaved stack;
- and
- (b) placing the interleaved stack into a heated environment such that heat from the heated environment is transferred to the fin.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.