proofpress.ch
This webpage is dedicated to share information about FAG proofpresses built from the early 40ies until the late 90ies. With a special focus on the Swiss built letterpress proofpresses.
FAG letterpress cylinder proof presses, especially the Swiss built models ‹FAG Control› and ‹FAG Swissproof› (1962–1994) have been exported to all five continents, serving printmakers, photoengravers, repro services, lay out, composing rooms and laboratories of ink and paper manufactures as helpful and economic tools in the process of production and quality control. Since these machines were massive and very much built to last, still today FAG letterpress and also offset proofpresses are often not only used by traditional printmakers, but also by a growing scene of young graphic artists, do-it-yourself and also professional printmakers. Not only for proofing purposes, but also to produce editions of prints. Some of them might be fed up with the perfection of digitally produced prints, others want to go back to explore analog layout, typesetting and traditional printmaking, and some might want to combine analog and digital qualities. There are some who are strictly luddites, some like to combine and mix old and new technique. Probably all of them are fascinated by the quality of the autonomic production and full design control from the first sketch to the delivery of their printed products.
Since that scene of artists is growing and probably the number of old ‹still in business›-printmakers is shrinking, and because of the fact that there might be still many FAG proofpresses around this webpage should be a helpful database for all users. Hopefully this platform is helping to share information between printmakers about their FAG proofpresses and maybe help each others with some of their possible issues.
All the information on this page has been collected and digitized from the original old FAG Catalogues, Manuals, Sparepart-Catalogues, Magazine-Articles and some interviews with Mr. Philippe Orville (GM at FAG Lausanne) and Mr. Horst Grebien (Former Chief Production Ingenieur at FAG Avenches). A huge thank you to FAG Lausanne for their support with binders over binders of informations to scan and also for their financial support to realize this webpage! A special thank you to Mr. Orville at FAG Lausanne for all the help!
Disclaimer
This Webpage does not contain any official information about FAG Graphic Systems SA, Lausanne, Switzerland and is not directly related to www.fag.ch. This is a fan page dedicated to some historical FAG products from 1940–1990. It does not represent the full information about all FAG products of that period, only a small part of the collection (only the letterpress proof presses, none of the related ‹Form-Test› tools or offset proof presses manufactured by FAG). The Name FAG and the Logo are worldwide legally protected!