American Auto presses - Multi, Rototex, Centurian

[Inkworks]

Word of caution- I hear that some vinyl inks do not take well to being force dried.  I have no experience with these however.

Any vinyl ink I've used has been fine with heat drying, usually it's the media being printed that determines max temp, not the vinyl ink. Depending on the size of the sheet good you're printing, you do need to be careful about letting it cool down before laying on subsequent colours or the residual heat can cause the sheet to grow enough to cause registration problems, for some big sheet goods we would rack them after heat drying to cool them down to room temp, but then we were printing some pretty big stuff.

Of course the flip side is heating sheet goods up to the point that some will shrink if they are not heat stabilized. Gotta watch that too.

[StuJohnston]

The datasheet for the 9700 series has a note about forced drying. I can't recall the specifics off the top of my head, but it would be neat to just have prints stack up after being printed. It would have to be a pretty long chamber come to think of it.

I just thought of another thing. I sent an email, but no response yet, so… What is the footprint of an arrow multiprinter 8/6? Come to think of it, I forgot to ask in the email anyway.

I also have issues with waterbased locking in the screen, the only time I get bad haze is from waterbased inks. I can wash out the solvent ink no problem and with a little work, even when it's dried.

EDIT: Sent another email with my number in it, got a call an hour later. I wish people wouldbe specific how they would like to be contacted. Whatever, The guy was cool and was able to answer al of my questions off the top of his head.

If anyone is curious, the specs that he gave me on the 6/8 arrow multiprinter was a width of 14', each head is 30"x4' and it takes 25x36 screens. He figures that it has enough pressure to go wider, we shall see I guess. I have wider screens that are 36" the short side. Now I just need to find out the power requirements. I am guessing it is 220 single phase.

[ebscreen]

Force drying vinyl and most solvent inks can "skin" the top layer sealing in the solvent beneath, and never fully drying.
Doable, but be careful.

Multiprinter should have no problem printing wider in terms of pressure, but watch for the head flexing.
Is it the version with the lock in pallet tips and heads?

[Inkworks]

We printed with Inktech vinyl inks, which were the old Ink Dezyne formulations after they acquired by Nazdar, this was for nameplate and membrane switch graphics onto sticker stock, polyester and polycarbonate. Never ever had problems with curing, they couldn't be simpler. We used conveyor drying 95% of the time, and usually used stack-catchers at the end of the oven. A sniff test was standard, if the vinyl solvent smell was gone, they were good to stack, as long as they weren't too hot or on stock that wasn't hard coated and needed slip-sheeting for display windows and the like. We cured them up to 200ºF depending on the sheet stocks heat tolerance. Occasionally for large flood coatings of background colours or temp sensitive sheet stocks  you really need a drying rack on hand.


I still print Inktech Vinyl inks onto Avery A-6 a-9 vinyl and contour cut it for bullet-proof outdoor stickers. Vinyl ink on vinyl stock make great bumper stickers and window decals.

With Nazdars expertize in inks I would expect their vinyl inks to be just as good or better.

[ZooCity]

Hey Stu, I wonder if we are talking about the exact same press? 

That's about right on the specs.  The issue with these machines, to me at least, is they have way too big a footprint.  We can fit up to 15' diam in our space but no bigger which rules out pretty much all Centurians, Arrow Multi Printers and the like that are larger than 6/8. 

I think with force drying the vinyl inks you're probably cool if it's low/slow enough.  If you don't get carried away with heat and speed and the dryer has lots of air flow it's only expediting the drying process in my mind.  That skinning issue makes sense as to why I heard this, I bet folks tend to run to hot and fast or maybe too much deposit.  I found that, with wb, force drying in the Vastex = extremely long final dry time on the prints.  I bet it was doing the same skinning thing more or less and trapping moisture in so it took longer to release from the prints. 

[StuJohnston]

It's quite possible we are talking about the same one. Is it in bellevue? There's a guy couple of miles from me that has one for sale, but will only sell it as part of a giant package. I have room for the press, but fitting two dryers, two manuals, a small cameo, a large format clamshell, one arm squeegee table, a 7' tall vacuum frame and whole load of other stuff just isn't in the cards for me. In fact, I wonder what kind of person would buy a large shop's worth of stuff all at once. Unless you had buyers lined up, it would end up costing a bit just to store.

Regarding skinning, I have found that I can't even put too thick of a layer of ink on the vinyl or it will scratch off over time. Not right away, much to my surprise. At least that is what I think is going on.

[ZooCity]

I bought a lot of gear from a shop least year that initially had two items I wanted and I just wound up taking it all because the price was right.  That's how we got the Tempo and Cameo.  I hear ya on the floor space...there's never enough. 

Are you using the Cameo with WB inks for flatstock at all?

FYI, you can rig up Cameos to be single color shirt printers.  Either DIY, I think Sbrem mentioned this in the past?, or AWT/GPI has a drop-in kit for $650.  I'm going to try it with ours if we don't wind up with an multi color auto real soon. 

Also, regarding this flooding business on the Tempo I spoke with Jim at AWT earlier, who was super helpful and knowledgable and he is of the same opinion as I that no, you can't get the Tempo to flood at rest and still load stock.  The newer AWT presses like the micro have this option on the front panel and they simply lower the screen a few inches and flood. 

I was checking out they're Screen-Eze I think it's called, a manual flatstock printer with parallel lift and side clamps as that would be way better suited to what I'm doing here- serigraphs with a lot of split fountains and the like.  It's $1700-2000 new, depending on format size which is hard to justify as the gig posters aren't paying the bills around here.

One more note for posterity, it doesn't appear that GPI offers a retrofit kit for the upgrading heads to squeegelizers.  This guy thought it would be cost prohibitive on a multi-color press and that's probably why it's not offered.  Anyone ever upgraded a Tempo or Arrow Multi with the squeegelizers?

[StuJohnston]

I go back and forth with the WB and Solvents. I really like the way that the solvents behave, but don't like the VOC's. I keep trying the WB inks, and every time I get a little better, but I still use solvent most of the time. Even though I don't have a cameo/tempo, my semi auto does the same open on dry cycle.

I originally wanted to buy a cameo from the guy with a ton of equipment as of right now. He had a list of each items value, as he saw it and it added up to quite a bit to be honest, 44k to be exact and he is only asking 8k. I sent him an email asking to buy the cameo for the price listed in the perceived value breakdown and no response. I suppose he wants to sell it all or nothing, but at least say so in the ad or email me back to tell me no.

As far as automated presses go, I only have a geniette that is ok for one color and large format multicolor. I mostly hand pull but would like to go bigger and registration on a press with no micros is becoming a gigantic pain.

I only do flatstock as of now. If I got the multiprinter, it would be to do flat stock and to start getting into shirts. The guy says that he will sell one head if I want, but I would like to take the whole thing if I can swing it. I mostly was interested initially because of the micros. I am so desperate to stop having to register with a stick. Not that I can't do it, I once did a six color print butt registered on accident. I forgot to trap anything.

So I take it it isn't the same multiprinter? Anyone interested in going in on buying a couple of shops worth of equipment with me?

[Inkworks]

A Cameo 30 or 38 is on my wish list..... 

[ZooCity]

A Cameo 30 or 38 is on my wish list..... 

Want ours if I don't turn it into a one-banger shirt printer?  We're in Western, MT.  I'll cut you a deal mang. 

[Inkworks]

Is it a 30 or 38?

[ebscreen]

Cameo's are great, my only complaint is stroke length adjustment.
Adjusting the cam and throw arm for stroke length is a PITA. DC
motors and proximity sensors is the bees knees.

[ebscreen]

Oh, and Zoo, if Inkworks wants your Cameo do you want my Eclipse?

[ZooCity]

Oh, and Zoo, if Inkworks wants your Cameo do you want my Eclipse?

Ohhh, yeah maybe.  I'd have to sell off the two clams I have to make some space.  chris

• zoocityapparel.com, shoot me details.

The Tempo we have just has a crank on the side for back stroke length adjust, pretty straight ahead.  Haven't ran the Cameo yet so no clue there but I notice you need wrench to adjust flood and blade height/pressure.  I think the Cameos are meant to be setup once and that's where you leave it, every job. 

[ebscreen]

Put it here, anyone that's interested can contact me.

Eclipse 1
30x40 print area
Couple sets of squeegee's/floods

Operationally fine, has seen better days aesthetically speaking,
probably needs $30 in various knobs and levers to be back to perfect.

Mods, if this needs to go to the classifieds, just let me know.