Mounting tapes are a necessary and important part of flexo label printing. Like other flexo supplies, such as plates and cylinders, the right mounting tapes ensure top quality results.

Avery Dennison, a materials supplier based in Mentor, OH, USA, offers a diverse portfolio of mounting tapes that can be used on a wide range of printing jobs. In order to produce large text and lines, reverse text and solids in multiple applications, Avery Dennison’s hard foam density product provides uniform solid and crisp lines. A soft foam density tape helps deliver print images like highlights, fine details and process printing, with the benefit of reduced dot gain and gear marks. Meanwhile, medium foam density provides balance between fine lines and dense ink coverage for combination of solids and line.

With flexography still dominating the global label printing market, Avery Dennison strives to provide options to meet its customers’ demands. “For flexographic mounting tapes, we have a unique design with our foams,” says Agata Kowalska, product manager at Avery Dennison. “The print quality is enhanced for smaller dots with minimum dot gain. These products make images crisper for a printer, which helps.”

Mounting tapes have improved by leaps and bounds over the years. They emerged some 30 years ago on vinyl films, where they were capable of handling basic print jobs. Better presses and increased printing standards have changed the flexographic landscape, though. This required a better tape to meet the challenges of prime label printing.

The quality of the mounting tape can directly lead to the quality of a print job. “You can use a mounting tape that makes things worse, whereas you can use a mounting tape with a better design that delivers superior performance to enhance the flexo printing experience,” adds Kowalska.

Avery Dennison’s Fas-Flex mounting tape are designed for printing combinations of lines and solids. One of the main features involves the ability to reposition the tape during the mounting process. It has also been developed to remove cleanly during demounting, leaving, no residue on the plate or cylinder.

“It’s very easy to reposition during the mounting process, which helps with better setup times,” explains Kowalska. “That is critical if you’re comparing to digital changeover times, and we’re trying to help our customers improve their productivity.”

According to Kowalska, traditional mounting tapes involve a foam and an adhesive, roughly around 20mm thick. Avery Dennison’s products feature a special formulation, the company says.

“What is different in our design is that our products have a double layer of PE film on both sides of the foam,” she says. “This does not change the thickness much, but it really helps with the performance that is necessary to change durometer density. The result is longer runs with greater print quality.”

Kowalska adds that many products feature great initial tack, but their aggressiveness prevents easy repositionability–leading to more waste of materials and time. “Fas-Flex also has consistent tolerance and dimensional stabilities, which helps to reduce and control dot gain,” says Kowalska. “It allows for minimal vibration, gear chatter, and balancing at high press speeds while providing great print quality.”

Avery Dennison also touts a simple portfolio that can help customers reduce and manage inventory. The mounting tapes come with a 48-hour delivery time, as well.

Even as digital printing technology grows in usage, flexography remains the dominant form of printing–thus necessitating improved flexo supplies. “Of course, digital technology is growing and it is offering flexibility to converters in many cases,” says Kowalska. “We believe, though, that flexography is still the main printing technology and here to stay.”