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Heat Seal - Heat Press - Whatever you want to call it! => General Heat Seal => Topic started by: Sbrem on September 29, 2023, 09:58:17 AM
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I've had an old Hotronix cap press for years, that works really well on unstructured caps. Structured caps on the other hand are often a bit difficult as I can't get them to get close enough to the platen, like they stick up about a 1/4" off the platen. It would seem that the radius of the caps is considerably shorter that the radius of the platen. It may be time to look at a new cap press, but any other ideas are welcome...
Steve
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I have cut up a shirt and folded it to about the size platen or the size of the void and taped it on, to pad the voids on the structured caps.
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I looked into this once, and don't quote me but I believe it's Hotronix that offers different radiused platens/heat panels.
IE you can change them out for different scenarios.
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I did end up cutting the back out of a golf shirt, folding to fit the platen, taped it down, and got 37 out of 40 to come out just fine. I will check out Stahl's to see about the different radius attachment, thanks.
Steve
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We have a few different models, I can say the Hotronix 360 IQ is mostly disappointing. We won't use it anymore for production except to take the pressure line out of the hat after initial pressing.....I've called that thing some really colorful names. Proworld had a decent one we picked up not too long ago for around 600.00, it came with other size platens too
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We had that problem as well so I took a few old koozies cut them to size and placed underneath the cap, took out all the empty space, I wish they would make a platen that would kind of form with what ever cap you are heat pressing.
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I use "spacers" or custom "pillows" a lot, often using many thicknesses of paper towels cut in the right shape and taped with heat tape.
However, I also find that increased tension on the springy stretch hold-down helps.
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You can get silicone sheets on Ali Express in different thicknesses. Really cheap. Great for cutting up and putting on the press for hats, pockets, etc.
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We have a few different models, I can say the Hotronix 360 IQ is mostly disappointing. We won't use it anymore for production except to take the pressure line out of the hat after initial pressing.....I've called that thing some really colorful names. Proworld had a decent one we picked up not too long ago for around 600.00, it came with other size platens too
Thank you, I have been considering one of those, but I think looking at some of the suggestions that I'll dig more deeply into those ideas rather than spend $1850.00 on the 360IQ
Steve
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We bought 2 360IQ's. Each one has a different set up for different hats. One has two rubber sheets attached to the lower platen for the super tough structured hats. The other is set up to do hat sides and unstructured hats. It has been working really well for us once we solved all the issues of different hat types.
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How does it work for structured caps?
Steve
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How does it work for structured caps?
Steve
No doubt structured waas our biggest frustration. After a ton of trying different things we settled on building up the bottom platen super super thick with two pads, I forget what the pads are called. We buy sheets of it and cut to suit. We use heat tape to permanently hold the pads in place and they are cut to fut inside the cap just right. Then it takes a lot of pressure to get really good contact between the pad and cap and upper platen. But it works so we roll with it.