Patent ID: 6884205

Claim:
A web conveyance roller a comprising a substrate and a surface layer on said substrate, said substrate comprising a material selected from a group consisting of stainless steel, cast iron, nickel, copper and carbon composite, said surface layer comprising a tungsten containing material thermally sprayed onto said substrate forming a generally irregular surface, said generally irregular surface comprising a plurality of generally rounded up features having rounded peaks and rounded sides, many of said generally rounded up features overlapping to form venting pathways randomly arranged along said generally irregular surface of said web conveyance roller, said venting pathways comprising at least about twenty-five percent of the area of said surface layer, the height of said generally rounded up features being greater than about 0.00005 inches but less than about 0.002 inches, said generally irregular surface comprising said generally rounded up features having an R a in the range from about 20 micro-inches to about 500 micro-inches to avoid scratching a web conveyed by said web conveyance roller.