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screen printing => Equipment => Topic started by: Prosperi-Tees on April 03, 2012, 12:47:29 AM
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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.
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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.
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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 (http://www.lawsonsp.com/lawson-equipment/graphic-equipment/presses/lawson-seneca)
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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.
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How big is your dryer?
Some people forget that they can not fold the shirts that are all-over printed
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If you are truly printing over the seams you will quickly ruin the vacum bed.
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Cover the vacuum bed with pallet tape. ;) I have seen all over printing
done with a calmshell.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Your biggest problem is going to be squeegie pressure...and your going to need quite abit printing over the seams..
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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?
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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.
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Would the head need to lockdown?
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Depends on how well it is made. The downward force of the squeegee pressure is trying to essentially push the head back up. If it can't resist that then your squeegee pressure is lost. On my Eclipse, you can set enough pressure that the head wont go all the way down, triggering an alarm.
Sent from my bathroom using Tapatalk
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Ahhhh that makes sense.
Side note, do you look at the toilet paper after you wipe? :o
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Thanks Steve, that's basically what I had in mind.
This is the one AWT makes currently.
http://www.awt-gpi.com/literatures/Accu-Print_Bag_Printer.pdf (http://www.awt-gpi.com/literatures/Accu-Print_Bag_Printer.pdf)
I'm thinking I could maybe even rig up m&r style bracket mounts, two up and be able to use all our existing platens.
eb you beat me to the cardboard suggestion. I'd find some nice rigid backing material, maybe even very thin plywood or melamine or something, top it with some spongy/foamy stuff and go to town. If the backer was rigid enough and stable you could easily run multicolor this way. With a crew of three- loader/puller, one to remove the Ts at the back of dryer one to bring up front and lay out the next shirt -I'll bet it would be quite fast.
Not sure about the pressure thing though. The Americans in our shop (I've not yet ran them, only watched 'em move a little) don't look like they'd have any issue at all plowing across whatever the hell you decided to put on the bed.
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Depends on how well it is made. The downward force of the squeegee pressure is trying to essentially push the head back up. If it can't resist that then your squeegee pressure is lost. On my Eclipse, you can set enough pressure that the head wont go all the way down, triggering an alarm.
Sent from my bathroom using Tapatalk
exactly.. I dont think you will get enough consistant pressure unless the heads lock down. I had a belt printer back a few years ago and even with the pressure on a precision belt there were issues. another thing that will help is running screens that are in the 12 newton range. super tight screens will cause you alot of problems. also you will need to retrain yourself to print with no off contact. that will also help..I am no expert with your specific application but have ran alot of allover work on belt printers and its a different animal..just sayin
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Side note, do you look at the toilet paper after you wipe?
No silly, there is an app for that.
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Side note, do you look at the toilet paper after you wipe?
No silly, there is an app for that.
hahahahahahaha
I look, or how else would I know I'm done?
Steve
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I wouldn't know where to find the actual figures, but I bet that with the proliferation of smart phones, and all they can do, many more are being ruined and replaced due to unplanned "swims".
It was already common enough with "not especially smart phones" that the cases include a moisture detector to help know just why "this thing just stopped working!"
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How does a blind person know when he's done wiping?
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By smell? Or touch?
That's just wrong Sean lmao!
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How does a blind person know when he's done wiping?
One thing i am sure about is homer(jay) has a answer for that...
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How does a blind person know when he's done wiping?
He or she knows the same way you do, they have stopped wiping after all.
I believe that you meant to ask, "How do they know when to stop wiping",and that, I wouldn't touch (so to speak)!
And yes, there's an old fashioned analog app for that, it's called a bidet.
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Hey,
Glad I searched before posting. It did somewhat answer my question but anyone on here doing serious production numbers with one of these? For apparel? Not AOP but piece printing? We have some serious numbers coming up this year and it is easy peasy piece printing. One hit wonders and through the dryer. I am thinking one person loads, one unloads, and one catches just like an auto but without the footprint. Is this possible? And maybe best thing yet put it on wheels and move it out of the way when not needed. Yes, no? Am I crazy or just stupid?
And to answer any questions both water based and plastisol inks.
Thanks!
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At my very first job out of art school, I worked in a poster/banner shop that had one of these. Thinks the name brand was an American.
I recall that for ours, we had only one guy working it 90% of the time. If we had an extra person she might assist in unloading, but our guy was fast from what I remember and I think the 2nd person just got in the way more often then not. He could load, print and unload faster than someone jumping in from the side to unload. + remember, when you hit the peddle, that thing clams down so you want control of who's under it when the peddle is hit.
We never had a person catching, but since we weren't printing apparel on it, we could do much more or maybe whole order before needing to clear the catching area for more.
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Thanks Dan. I have been around them but have never operated one. Yeah, the clamp down looks fierce. No stoners on that press!
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The major drawback on using these for textile as opposed to a carousel is that you can't load while
the printing is taking place. Two operators doesn't really increase the speed much as Dan said.
That said, one person and 300 pcs/hour is pretty realistic.
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The major drawback on using these for textile as opposed to a carousel is that you can't load while
the printing is taking place. Two operators doesn't really increase the speed much as Dan said.
That said, one person and 300 pcs/hour is pretty realistic.
Sounds about right. I run flatstock on our cameo at about 350/hr. without too much trouble. You would want to place the flatstock/shirt printer strategically to make the offloading as fast as possible. It may/may not be actually faster than doing a single operator doing one hitters on a manual press but it will certainly be more consistent and less fatiguing.
I think the "official" retrofit kit from GPI for a cameo is priced at $650 but I doubt it is much better than Sbrem's description of a jerry rigged platform and an american style platen and mount. Probably a little more convenient if you want to switch back and forth from flatstock to shirts....I've been pondering it. Our Cameo currently resides right next to the dryer and is used for actual flatstock about once a month to do transfers for caps and tags and the odd record sleeve or gig poster run. Might pull the vac bed and make myself a nice parallel lift manual printing setup out of the bed and let the cameo whip out one hit prints on Ts.
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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.
Back to the OP. How do folks deal with the "overprint" mess inherent with all-over printing on a re-purposed press like this? I can't see the table going through a bath like a belt on a true all-over belt printer.
Wiping it clean after each shirt's gotta slow down the run a bit.
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Thanks for all the info guys. Mucho appreciated. And Frog, I do know that people who run those large, large print areas of the Challenger III's and the Anatol version lay down a sheet of cheap paper, like cheap, cheap paper that is precut before they put the shirt on the platen. Then shirt and paper goes through dryer. Well, that is just probably one way to do it but the shop that I know that does it that was it every day, all day long. With two of those presses just for that reason so they are doing something right! I am sure they buy that paper in massive rolls and just have someone standing there all day cutting. Talk about boring!
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I've seen shirts tac'ed (as opposed to tacked) to cardboard, and then just using the vacuum holdown of the press
to, well, hold it down. Whole mess goes through the dryer, typically waterbased inks so not much to deal with on
the next garment.
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We have used butcher paper in the past and that works well. As it goes through the dryer it cures onto the paper. It is cheap and last a long time.
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We used the Cameo with t-shirt attachment that AWT sells as an option.
Nice, but a little clunky, saving a lot of labor on larger orders for one color prints.
No squeegee angle adjustment, but got around that by durometer and screen counts.
Helped us save for our Sportsman and will be around forever, it's a tank of course.
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People have also coverted old multi-printer heads to do the same thing..