[WANTED] Used Auto - Bottom of the Barrel

[Croft]

heres one for anyone that wants to cross the border, its dirty but I saw it running, seems reasonable for the right person


Just outside Toronto Ontario

http://www.kijiji.ca/v-business-industrial/mississauga-peel-region/m-and-r-automatic-gauntlet-screen-printing-press/568897909?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true

[244]

heres one for anyone that wants to cross the border, its dirty but I saw it running, seems reasonable for the right person


Just outside Toronto Ontario

http://www.kijiji.ca/v-business-industrial/mississauga-peel-region/m-and-r-automatic-gauntlet-screen-printing-press/568897909?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true

might as well take a match and burn the money. You will haveuch less headache and heartache than buying a machine this old and bringing it back across the border. Just a FYI.

[mimosatexas]

That one is a little far for me, but what would be wrong with a functional auto for $2500 for 6 months or so?

[jvanick]

Rich probably means that customs will be a pita.

Also... that if you want to be able to buy direct fit parts, some of the parts may be getting scarce...

of course, if you're good with a welder, hand tools, understand a bit about pneumatics and electronics, and are willing to learn how to 'engineer' fixes, something like this wouldn't be a bad purchase... heck, it's in better shape than mine was when I got it, at least it runs.

[Prosperi-Tees]

The older presses are a good entry into auto printing but the old presses also take longer to setup, have their quirks and nuances, If I seriously had to do it all over again I would buy new from the start so I wouldn't have to worry about upgrades. That of course is financially dependent and I am like you I dont like to have too much debt

[Croft]

post intended more for someone local, not worth it for someone out west but Buffalo or NY only an hour or so drive, I have not had problems bringing equip. north over the border that I have picked up.

[royster13]

Going south over the border is usually more difficult that coming north.....More rules southbound and those folks are "sticklers" for details.....Going north they hardly pay attention...This is based on my 2 or 3 trips a week over and back.....

[Inkworks]

Actually customs are a piece of cake, particularly for good manufactured in N.A.

I bought my auto on Ebay, paid for close to 6% of it's landed cost today alone, and it wasn't a cheap press.

[ZooCity]

I'd agree with ebscreen that a 6 or 8 color Gauntlet might be the best fit in that price range. 

Also will agree that compressor/chiller needs to be accounted for.   Our compressor/chiller/air line cost a good bit more scratch than the Gauntlet GT we purchased.

I have no experience with the Javelin but have always found the American presses accurate and consistent, despite being huge, heavy and perhaps the slowest of the bunch to setup. 

The old Gauntlets, 1st series, will teach you a lot about auto printing, including lessons you might not have ever wanted to learn.  They are reliable, simple and provided the center shaft was kept lubricated and the machine installed correctly, could potentially run forever.  All the other parts are replaceable, it's essentially modular that way.  A few parts are getting more difficult to find but nowhere near impossible yet.  I installed our '92 just in time and it helped us through the last year and a half of crazy growth, (we will triple in size this year at a minimum, have already doubled as of May) and I couldn't imagine printing all that manually, it would have been impossible.  An old Gauntlet in decent shape will absolutely pay for itself and many times over.

That said, our trusty old Gauntlet is now the reason I'm not pulling trout out of the creek and drinking beer right now....ok only half true, I am drinking beer. 

Setups are 10-15min per color due to the flex in the press heads and the lengthy series of steps just to make a small micro bump- unlock squeegee kips, pull off squeegee pressure, unlock micros, unlock rear clamps, make micro adjustment, snug micros, lock rear clamps, tighten micros, reset squeegee pressure (where was it at again? better feel under the screen with your fingers and try to remember if that's the same pressure.  oh wait, is the pressure even now?), lock squeegee kips -and even then micros are very jumpy with copious amounts of tail whip.  Sometimes you make a big micro move and nothing happens, sometimes you make a small one and are 1/16" out of reg on next print.  The press registers in the literal sense very well, same concept as most modern presses with cam rollers connecting with forks, but the flex in the heads and the deflection of the platens will cause aggravation.  I find it will often print a little differently every time.  In a word, setup is very slow and if you add it up, they can eat up half of a shift, leaving you with four hours of actual production in a day.  Great machine for long runs though and can clip along at 700 pcs an hour, no problem.  I imagine the Javelin is in a similar boat with the longer setups as well and the Americans certainly are.  It's hard to tell what everyone was thinking with some of the older machines for sure but they do have some smart features as well.

I would aim for a Gauntlet past whatever date they stopped keeping the squeegee pressure constantly on.  That's right, the blade completes it's stroke and just stays there.  This brilliant feature of some of the early models renders some of their nicer features useless, can't use the no shirt detector, print start or print finish for instance, the blade will contact the tacky platen and rip the emulsion off the back of the screen.  Not to mention it just flings ink behind the flood all day. 

Also find one with stroke adjustment if at all possible.  Ours has none so we've had to use creative measures. 

So I'm saying series 1 Gauntlet because the risk is practically zero and when you outgrow it, which will happen very quickly, you have a nice second press to whip out sleeves and such. 

Prepare for a love/hate relationship.   

[Gilligan]

Not all of us have trust funds or inheritances...

Whoever could you be talking about. Lol

[Prosperi-Tees]

I agree with Zoo big time on the Gauntlet as that's what we run and that's what we face everyday in that press. Micros are frustrating so I actually don't use them at all. I use a trusty hammer!

[Homer]

guys - there is a trick to using the micros on the older gauntlets. it's more of a skill than a trick I guess. left to right alignment is no big deal, right, it's the squeegie pressure that distorts the image causing most of the issue. so what we do is "misregister" (up, out, towards top of the print, that way) the screen about 1/16" or so. now, when you out the pressure on the squeegie and print - your in register. it's not always perfect, but 9 out of 10 times we don't use the micros. using a reg device is absolutely useless for these machines, and I think they predate the tri-loc so I don't believe they were designed to work with it. screen tension and your off contact selection will ultimately decide your misregister amount.

1) make a print with base or outline - for us head 1 or 6
2) flash it
3)align every screen, then adjust it "up" about 1/16" -without squeegies and flood bars in...lock it down.
4)put in bars/squeegies
5) ink up and test print the rest of the colors.


a few years back I was talking about the constant squeegie pressure and the end result was to install some of those toggles that dump the air on both the squeegie and bar, they do help in set up but they are not used during the print cycle. only when we manually walk over and flip the switch.....this works for us anyway....just on the G1, G2 - different story..no issues there at all.

[Prosperi-Tees]

Yup, that's exactly what we do Homie, any adjustments after the initial locking in of the screens gets the wack of the ole hammer. Usually only off very slightly.

[Printficient]

There is a 8 color 10 station 93 Gauntlet in Atlanta for $8500 or so.

[ZooCity]

If at all possible, try to snap up a Gauntlet R/S.  Those look perfect to me for a small, first time press.  They have all the series 2 features (all air still though) and would eliminate most of the headaches referred to here without breaking the bank.

I'd toss it up between a Jav and a Gauntlet though.  If someone has Jav experience and could chime in on it's limitations that would help you a bunch.  Both presses are very well supported and fairly easy to find used. 

I considered the air toggles and might still do it but we're looking into a new press asap so that's backburnered for a bit since the Gauntlet would be a second press for the easier stuff once that drops and it may not be as big of a deal since it wouldn't need to do 4-5 multi color setups a day.