Example 1. 4CB board (no perimeter holes) with two newspaper negatives mounted onto a double truck plate. The lead pins are RERE with two EV tails directly back from the round pins.

(RERE means that there are four compressible pins mounted into the board, and from left to right they are-round, elongated horizontal, round, elongated horizontal.)

Contact board, image control board, pin register system, spring-vac board- call it what you will, all are different names for basically the same item. They are all boards used inside your vacuum frame to align images from film or negatives accurately and squarely onto printing plates. How they are designed and which style is chosen depends upon what is required.

TERNES BURTON boards all have compressible plate pins.

With five styles of contact boards and a wide range of sizes, our boards are an affordable way to align negatives to either single or double truck plates. They are designed to use the imagesetter and punch system you already own to avoid costly new equipment purchases. This is a simple and affordable solution for the many newspapers reducing their web widths. Given their affordable cost TERNES BURTON contact boards can also be used just to duplicate single films. Our boards are flexible yet sturdy, and at .140” are thin enough to work in all vacuum frames. Some boards have perimeter holes, some do not. It depends upon how you are using them. Our 4CB style has no perimeter holes and is shown here in examples 1 through 6 with variations in compressible pin placements.

At TERNES BURTON we make a wide variety of styles with almost unlimited sizes and variations available- too many to show here. We have pictured here some of the more common examples. Please contact us with specific requests for an accurate quotation. When you call you will be asked for details such as your largest plate size, how many films you are using, where and how both your film and plates are punched, and the size and spacing of your holes. We can then fax or email you an exact drawing.

Example 3. 4CB board with ERRE lead pins and two tails back from the rounds. Note how close the tails are to each other. Minimum spacing between compressible pins is .500”.

Example 5. 4CB board with two films and a single plate with each film punched with an ERE pattern (elongated horizontal, round, elongated horizontal). The spacing between the two lead elongated pins is usually 8.50”.

Example 6. 4CB board with one plate and one film attached to the same compressible pins. The board can be made with any number of pins.

The price of the board is dependent upon the number of compressible pins and its overall size.

Example 4. 4CB board with each negative mounted using only the left pins. Many times even though the negative has two lead holes and two tail holes, production prefers to use just one front and one back pin as a time savings measure.

Example 7. This 5CB board has the film and plate tiling from opposite sides. The film is attached to movable spacers which are inserted into the track side, while the plate is attached to fixed compressible pins on the opposite side. The distance between these two rows of pins can be whatever is requested. A common distance is 23.50”. This style can be useful if when reducing your web width you need the two center film pins closer together than 500”. In this case both films would be attached to a single spacer having two top buttons on a single base.

Example 9. This imagesetter board has an Agfa style piece of landscape film attached to five spacers, which are inserted into the left perimeter holes. Spacers have round and elongated top buttons to match the holes in the film. The tail on the film is attached to an elongated vertical spacer. Using tail pins helps control movement on the film when it’s longer than it’s wide.

Example 8. 2CBV board with two vertical tracks. The spacing between the tracks on this style board is limited to a whole or half inch spacing. If the lead to tail hole imagesetter spacing cannot be moved to accommodate this, then the spacer’s top buttons are offset to pick up any odd distances required.

A Ternes Burton imagesetter board is a quick and easy way to register one, two, or even four imagesetter films by using both perimeter holes and spacers. Made with perimeter holes on one, two, or four sides, the film is attached to these perimeter holes using movable spacer pins. The plate is attached to compressible pins which are mounted permanently into the board. The compressible pins retract while under vacuum to provide an even surface to minimize distortion. The top surface is usually a textured surfaced, but matte is also available if you are using raised print for flexo printing.

Example 10. Film can also be attached both lead and tail to spacers in the perimeter holes. Movable spacers are easy to change later if further reducing your web width.

Example 2. 4CB board with four lead pins only, no tails. If you have an S-wrap then all four pins would instead be round so that you can flip and flop your yellows.