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Tampo printing.
How it was done in the early days.
MB75 Alfa Carabo. Cheers, Steve
Matchboxkiwi

Great photo and very interesting, many thanks for showing it Steve.

I would have loved to have seen this in action.

Just for the sake of correctness: the word is "tampo".

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pad_printing.

ChFalkensteiner wrote:Just for the sake of correctness: the word is "tampo".

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pad_printing.

Is 'Tempo' not an Americanism Christian?

I thought it was TV character who drove around in a White Volvo...

...Simon Tempo.

Ghosty.

Great photo were the models hot printed or printed from a roll Pete

The ink was picked up by the very soft rubber pads (Greeny-Beige colour in the picture), from the trays (that slide out from the bigger unit), of coloured inks at left of picture and the pads moved over to be above the models then moved down onto each model to make contact during a momentary stop. The track would then start again and the next batch of models were touched by the inked pads and so and so on.

The ink (really an acrylic based paint), was cold cure, so the models did not have to be heated, they may have passed through a dryer just to ensure the printing was dry enough for the next stage in the model's construction.

This 'Tampo' printing process is widely used throughout the toy and model car industry and various videos can be found online of the process working.

Ghosthunter.

Hi Ghostie thanks for the info. If there were two or three colours on the body would it have to go through the process tow or three times. I understand that the wheels were hot foiled printed, do you think they were done off the model Pete

Yes Pete, more than One colour meant more than One pass under the pads, allowing for drying time. The wheels would be 'Hot Foiled' off the model in their own little production area.

Ghosthunter.