Importance

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Abstract

A sleeve is provided to be drawn over a rotary support in order to define a blanket cylinder of an indirect or offset printing machine in which the blanket cylinder cooperates with a lithographic plate cylinder from which the sleeve receives the data to be printed onto a substrate which moves between the blanket cylinder and a pressure cylinder. The sleeve comprises an inner cylindrical portion configured to be drawn over the aforesaid rotary support. The outer surface of the inner cylindrical portion is covered by a single layer structure that cooperates directly with the lithographic plate and with the substrate to be printed. The single layer structure is composed at least partly of polyurethane material and cells occupying no less than about 0.6 percent by weight and no more than about 4.4 percent by weight and uniformly dispersed throughout the single layer. The single layer is formed of a precursor that is deposited by ribbon technology onto the outer surface of the inner cylindrical portion. The precursor includes two components. The first component includes polyol and microspheres wherein the microspheres constitute between about 1 percent by weight of the first component and about 6 percent by weight of the first component. The second component includes a curing agent for the polyol such that the weight ratio of the first component to the second component is in the range of about 100:38 to about 100:60.

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First Claim