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The birth of pad printing

1956-2006, 50^th work anniversary of the
founder of industrial pad printing, Mr Wilfried Philipp,
Managing Director of TAMPOPRINT® AG.

Out of the widely spread and well known methods of the "Decalcier process of the watch industry", Mr Wilfried Philipp, after experimenting with various mixtures of materials, succeeded in manufacturing pads (transfer media) based on silicone rubber, which combined many good printing properties.

Today, pad printing is a worldwide established industrial decoration and labelling procedure. Product design and production process are no longer imaginable without pad printing.

The birth of pad printing by invention the pad (silicon rubber)

The predecessor to the pad printing process used today was the "Decalcier process", as it is known in the Swiss clock and watch making industry. This manual printing process which used gelatin pads to decorate clock dials was not however very effective because the gelatin pads only lasted for a couple of printing processes. In 1965 the inventor and owner of TAMPOPRINT, Mr Wilfried Philipp, looked into this problem.

By employing this commonly used and well-known method and by experimenting with various mixes of material, Mr Wilfried Philipp managed to produce the pads (transfer medium) on the basis of silicone rubber which combined many positive print properties. He produced very durable and flexible carriers for the printing motif which were resistant to solvent. These were known as cold-vulcanised silicone pads.

Way back in 1965 Mr Wilfried Philipp was working intensively on building a mechanical pad printing machine to print clock dials. He incorporated his experiences in future development work such that the world's first pad printing machine was up and running as quickly as 1968.

When the first electro-mechanical pad printing machine was presented in 1971 at K'71 in Düsseldorf, it caused a sensation. Up until then it had been impossible for three-dimensional and curved plastic products (e.g. packaging, deodorant rollers) to be printed using machines. Nothing now stood in the way of a revolution in the design and inscription industry. Industrial pad printing had well and truly begun. The first major order came from the heart of the Swiss clock and watch making industry from Jura, Montreux: 100 pad printing machines. The first pad printing machine was supplied just three months later.