Mounting rubber in washout

I am experiencing a problem with my polymer washout unit. The plate is not sticking to the mounting rubber on the lid of the Washout unit. every time I open the washout the partially washed out plate is lying somewhere under the water. I have lost a lot of plates with a particularly fine lined design I have been trying to process so I would love to hear if anyone has any ideas. What do you wipe the rubber with for example to make sure the plate sticks. The plate seems to adhere to it and then in the middle when I check it has already fallen off.

I know I can buy a new mounting rubber but I would like to know if there is a cleaning solution our trick to make it work instead of just buying new stuff all the time.

Thanks

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Hi. A couple things to consider:

- Your green PVC rubber might be too old and not have enough tack to hold the plate during washout.
This specially happens when in contact with water. It gets behind the plate and makes it un-stick.
- You need to make sure the green PVC is 100% dry before sticking a plate to it.
- We always give it a wipe with vinegar after use and let it dry before applying an acetate or mylar to protect it and keep it nice and fresh for next use, which could be next day or a couple days.
- Make sure the brushes are at the right height. If the previous owner was processing the same material or very similar to yours this might not be a problem.
- Maybe you are too filled up with water. In our machine we fill it just a tiny bit over the brushes.

- You could test the stickiness or tack of your green PVC by sticking a plate, processed or unprocessed and try moving it, if it gives, you need a new PVC (you can get it from Boxcar).

In the meantime if you have some really urgent plates to process and you know your PVC doesn’t work any more, you can use double sided tape, or if you have enough margin use some duck tape to make the plate stay. It’s not pretty or elegant, but it works. That’s how they demonstrated to me the machine I bought (used), they had long lost the tack on the PVC but still processed a fine plate before my eyes.

Best of lucks.

Enrique

Thanks Enrique. that’s a great help, I will use the tape for now and order a new pvc …it has no tacky at all and is about A5 size where it should be A4.

Then you’re definitely going to enjoy full platen size when you replace it. :)
It’s worth it.