Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Presensitized Printing plate 3

Presensitized Printing plate 3            by Mr. Bob Gumbinner

3M claimed that our plates really had a silicate interlayer. Their chemist, Case, did not believe we could make plates with zirconium fluoride. The Court appointed a master, Professor Lindford, to find out if this were true. We bought very pure potassium zirconium hexafluoride and he came to our plant where we made plates using distilled water and 0.1% of the zirconium fluoride and made plates that could be imaged and copies printed from. I then went to 3M in St Paul where they tried to make plates using a 0.1% solution of sodium silicate.      These plates failed to print. About this time, the US Government sued 3M for anti-trust violations. Don Spille our attorney at this time got the presensitized plates included in the government’s case.

The government won, so Professor Lindford did not need to report his findings to the Chicago court. We later hired Professor Linford as our research director. Although I asked him, he never told us what he would have reported.