PRINTING CYLINDER ASSEMBLY FOR A PRINTING MACHINE

A printing cylinder assembly for a printing machine is provided, the assembly having a sleeve cylinder which can be simply coupled to and decoupled from a rotating shaft and which can be exchanged easily. The sleeve cylinder 30 is mounted to fit on the rotating shaft 20 so that it can be fitted on, and be extracted from, the rotating shaft 20, constituting a printing cylinder (comprising a plate and a blanket cylinder 2, 3). The rotating shaft 20 is provided with a cam shaft 41 and a coupling member 42 that constitutes a coupling mechanism 40. In a coupling and a decoupling state which the coupling mechanism 40 comes into, rotations of the cam shaft 41 cause the coupling member 42 to couple and decouple the sleeve cylinder 30 to and from the rotating shaft 20 when the coupling member 42 is diametrically urged against, and parted from, the inner diametric surface of the sleeve cylinder 30, respectively. The sleeve cylinder 30 and the rotating shaft 20 can thus be simply coupled to and decoupled from each other only by rotary operations of the cam shaft 41.