Understanding the Pad Printing Pad

Special Printing Pads for Large Images

In some situations, a large image area must be printed and the machine does not have the power to compress such a heavy pad in a smooth motion. Two solutions to this problem are available.

The first is to use a pad with a hollow interior that provides the same surface hardness. This technique also reduces the cost of silicone rubber for such a large pad. The second option is a dual-hardness pad, where the core of the pad is made of a softer material and the outer layer is the harder rubber. Both methods can help, but the second produces a more stable pad. (A third option, of course, would be to use a different imaging process such as screen printing for larger image areas.)

We're aware of another very unusual pad configuration that is a bit reminiscent of the inflated pig bladder concept. This involves very specialized machines that use hollow pads that are inflated with air just prior to ink pick-up. The pad stays inflated until it comes into contact with the substrate, when the air is evacuated. The deflated pad can conform to a wider area of the substrate, allowing 1800 of a sphere to be printed (with standard pads, the largest angle that can generally be printed onto a cylinder or sphere is 1000.) One sample application is multicolour beach balls, where cartoon characters are printed directly onto the surface of the inflated ball. This technique is a cheaper alternative to in-mou Id labels for such specialized work.