Building and testing a gravure paper conformity tester

The gravure industry does not have an inexpensive tester which can accurately predict the behavior of paper on a gravure press. The most acceptable tester currently available is the Parker Print Surf. A conformity tester, based on compression of paper into a thin channel, was designed and built. It was compared to the Parker Print Surf and found to be poorer in predicting ability except in the special case of groundwood papers. More study is necessary. Several unusual techniques were used. The first involved running sheets of paper through a web press. This technique had a slight leading sample distortion problem. The second involved a new method for designating the skipped dot count of a paper sample. This technique was based on finding the darkest step of a 16 step gray scale which had three skipped dots. It was superior to the traditional method of designating skipped dots in terms of data collection and data analysis