What is pad
printing?
A process that has developed
rapidly over the past 20 years significantly helped by the use of silicone rubber
as a print medium (the pad). The pads can easily be made in a variety of shapes
and the non-absorbent silicone surface ensures superb colour transfer. The pad
printing machines ensure repeatable high definition décor, pictures or lettering
onto uneven or curved surfaces as well as well as a wide variety of substrates.
How did this
process originate?
No one quite knows who developed
the process but the origins lie in the watch and ceramics industries. The direct
precursor of pad printing is the "decalcier process" which was used in the watch
making industry in Switzerland, a pad made of gelatine compound being used to
transfer colour onto watch faces. Towards the end of the Sixties pad printing
expanded into other industries and this was further enhanced with the discovery
of silicone pads.
How does it
work?
Pad printing is an intaglio
process. A flat acid-etched steel plate, the cliché (from where we get the English
expression to repeat until worthless) is filled with ink. A smooth elastic pad
made from non-absorbent silicone rubber picks up a layer of ink from the cliché
and transfers it onto the substrate. This pad is where the other name for pad
printing comes from "tampon" (the German for pad) or tampoprinting.
What
can be pad printed?
It would be easier to ask
what materials cannot be pad printed? Pad printing offers individual solutions
for printing onto different varying shapes and surfaces: wood, ceramics, glass,
plastics, metal, wax, paper, leather, earthenware etc. are all printable by this
process.
Advantages
Because of the flexibility
of the pads they can deform around components and follow their contours allowing
for print on uneven surfaces. The choice of pad shape depends on the shape of
the product to be printed; type and size of print and position on the substrate.
Using "height adjustment" allows simultaneous printing of "stepped" products.
For more information The
Pad Printing Process
Pad
Printing examples
Print version