Patent ID: 8703390

Claim:
A method of making a flexographic printing sleeve forme comprising the steps of: forming a sleeve body by providing one or more at least partially cured uniform layers on a sleeve carrier by: supporting the sleeve carrier in a vertical position coaxial with a coating axis; providing an annular coating collar, supplying a curable composition to the annular coating collar and moving the annular coating collar along the sleeve carrier in a vertical direction coaxial with the coating axis thereby coating a layer of the curable composition onto a peripheral surface of the sleeve carrier; providing an irradiation stage and moving the irradiation stage in synchronism with the annular coating collar along the sleeve carrier in the vertical direction while irradiating the coated layer of the curable composition so as to at least partially cure the layer of the curable composition onto the peripheral surface of the sleeve carrier; and optionally repeating the steps of moving the coating collar and the irradiation stage while irradiating the layer of the curable composition coated by the coating collar a plurality of times so as to apply a plurality of the layers of the curable composition onto the peripheral surface of the sleeve carrier; forming a relief image on the sleeve body by imagewise jetting one or more curable jetting and curing fluids; and optionally overall post-curing the sleeve body.