The use of large rollers for applying adhesives, coatings and inks to various surfaces or substrates has been a common practice for many years. The rollers that are used for this purpose must be cleaned periodically to remove buildup of materials upon the surface of the rollers. In other instances, it may be necessary to clean the rollers so that the machine can be used for applying different adhesives, coatings or inks.
Numerous proposals have been made for cleaning the surfaces of such rollers and, so far as presently known, all of these systems require some type of hot or cold solvents to remove a deposited material from the surface of a roller.
One of the most difficult types of roller to clean is the rotogravure roller because these rollers have small cells that are etched into the surface of the roller itself. So far as presently known, in order to remove all of the materials from the small crevices or cells, it is almost mandatory that the final cleaning be done by hand scrubbing the surface of the roller. This becomes a very tedious task with rollers that have application surfaces that are as large as 8 inches in diameter and almost 7 feet in length.
While automated systems have been proposed, many rollers of this type are still cleaned by emersion in a solvent bath for an extended period of time and subsequent hand scrubbing of the surface of the roller.