Could this or could it not?

[Prosperi-Tees]

Im trying to wrap my head around why this could or could not be used to print 1 color all over prints. It seems to me that it would work without any issues but what am I missing as I have never seen one of these close up.

[Dottonedan]

Typically used for flat stock printing from what I have experienced. Called a clam shell. I have seen them in apparel shops so it seems that they may use them for that. I'm sure someone more experienced may chime in and explain more.

[Prosperi-Tees]

The smallest Lawson Seneca has a 30x40 print area, more than enough for allover.
http://www.lawsonsp.com/lawson-equipment/graphic-equipment/presses/lawson-seneca

[Frog]

A true designed-for-purpose all over printer belt goes through a wash. You will have to manually clean the platen on this puppy each shirt.

If you do want to experiment with this method, invest a few bucks in a piece of melamine faced particle board and a screen and jiffy clamps.

These flat bed presses also have a vacuum top which you may want to change out or cover rather than filling the holes with ink.

You can pick up a used Advance Cameo, or M&M  pretty cheaply sometimes.

[Denis Kolar]

How big is your dryer?
Some people forget that they can not fold the shirts that are all-over printed

[tonypep]

If you are truly printing over the seams you will quickly ruin the vacum bed.

[Doug B]

  Cover the vacuum bed with pallet tape. I have seen all over printing
done with a calmshell.

[Sbrem]

Yes, you can do that, but there will a lot of messing around. Certainly cover the vacuum bed in pallet mask. As Andy says though, try it manually first, very cheap to try out compared to buying a machine. I converted an old Filbar flat stock press into a 2 up t-shirt printer years ago, removing the original bed and making 2 t-shirt plates for it. It worked pretty well, we printed 10's of thousands of shirts with it. We later used a Cameo 18 for one color work, same thing. So, yes, you can do that.

Steve

[ZooCity]

Steve I'm interested to hear the pros and cons of those conversions. I have a tempo and a cameo in the house and had these sort of plans for the cameo.  Not all over, just one color standard prints.  Awt basically sells a cameo setup this way for bag printing. Looks pretty straight ahead, just swap out the bed. 

[larryk]

I have a Lawson Mustang like the one pictured and we use it to print all of our plastisol transfers 3-4 hundred per hour no problem... We have done up to 8 colors... T shirt printing is not the intended use but it would surely work if you are creative enough.

[Sbrem]

Steve I'm interested to hear the pros and cons of those conversions. I have a tempo and a cameo in the house and had these sort of plans for the cameo.  Not all over, just one color standard prints.  Awt basically sells a cameo setup this way for bag printing. Looks pretty straight ahead, just swap out the bed.

Hey Zoo,
We removed the vacuum bed, put a 3/4" or so piece of plywood down, attached an Advance t-shirt base plate and Advance pallet for the same, adjusted the height so it would work, and that was pretty much it. You could probably get those parts from AWT. We printed a ton of shirts that way, and lots of mousepads too, back in the one color mousepad days. For white ink, we used a bullet nosed squeegee...

Steve

[ebscreen]

I've seen it done on clamshells as well. You can get creative with using pieces of cardboard to stick the
shirt to and then using the vacuum to hold that down. Whole thing goes through the dryer.

Andy is right though, get you some Jiffy clamps (Denco has 'em) and start from there.

[RICK STEFANICK]

Your biggest problem is going to be squeegie pressure...and your going to need quite abit printing over the seams..

[Prosperi-Tees]

Thats what I was thinking. Looking at the specs it only takes 3cfm of pressure. Would that be enough to print discharge thru a 180 or 230?

[ebscreen]

CFM is the flow, not the pressure.

I'd think most flatstock presses should be able to produce enough pressure for waterbase.

The question is if the head locks down or not.