Natural Forms and Functions

Can you guess what this is?

If you said a honeycomb....you'd be wrong.

For one thing, it's made of metal, and bees, strong tho they are... don't do metal.

What it is, is an anilox. It's used to transfer ink from the ink reservoir to the printing plate in large printers of things like brochures, newspapers, and even cloth. It seems the shape of the cells is one of the more efficient ways to transfer even amounts of the ink, with less waste.

You have to think, though, that a plate like that would be a pain to clean. If you've ever tried to wash something dimpled like that, like a golf ball, you know that the dirt, or ink in this case, tends to hide at the bottom of the dimple.

The bees don't seem to have any trouble cleaning their cells, but then, they're just the right size to get in there, and they don't mind eating the rest of the wax... reuse, recycle!

The anilox rolls, however, need an anilox roll cleaner to dissolve the residue and make the machine ready for the next printing task.

It's fascinating, what one can learn on the internets...