buying a bigger press with less arms

[ol man]

I've been looking around at new press's -- don't want to dick around with entry level anything, or get less than a 12 color.. but your talking alot of money
So i was wondering about buying say a 14 color press with only 10 arms --- add them as i get more money....

Can anyone give me the down side to this approach?

thanks

[ebscreen]

I've seen a lot of shops that went that route but have yet to seen one that followed through with ordering the additional heads.

[blue moon]

check out the new M&R oval. great price and easy(er) to upgrade.

pierre

[jvanick]

considering that you'll always need at least 1 flash, ideally followed by a cool down station, you could certainly leave 2 heads off.

example:
our flash 'lives' in head 3...
and our cool down is head 4...

-- we run enough stuff where I sometimes want a double hit before the flash, and don't want the press 'double-hitting'.
-- and whenever possible I like to run a lint screen in head 1.

likely if I wanted to 'save' $5-10k ish, I could have left heads 3 and 4 off...

one thing to consider tho, if you're planning on keeping your press a long time, is that you can always 'cannibalize' parts from those other heads down the road to keep things running, and also, the resale is likely higher on a 'fully-loaded' press.

[3Deep]

One problem I see in what your wanting to do Ol man is how long would it take you to buy other heads?  tech moves so fast now the parts for that press might cost you as much as what you paid for your whole press in few years.

darryl

[TCT]

We had a decision about this a while ago! Think the thread went like 5 pages, leave out head 3 and 7 if memory serves correctly.

[GraphicDisorder]

Even though we almost always have our flash on 3,  (leaving 2 spots pre flash can normally set up 2 sides of a shirt or 2 designs this way), we have moved our flash to head 2 at times, so in that scenario we wouldn't be able to do that if we had not bought one of those heads. Plus consider you'll have a second tech visit to pay for to add the heads and so on if you ever actually do add them.

I think it could make sense for some shops, but for us it wouldn't.

[Printficient]

Two words.....IQ Oval.

[john52]

Two words.....IQ Oval.

Four words..... Two Hundred Thousand Dollars.

[TCT]

Found it! Here is the thread I was talking about from a while back with lots of opinions-
http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,11814.0.html

[1964GN]

On our new 12/16 we have the first flash in 3 and the second in 7... we'll know if that was the right move for use sooner rather than later!

[TCT]

On our new 12/16 we have the first flash in 3 and the second in 7... we'll know if that was the right move for use sooner rather than later!

I think that's a smart move, 3&7 that is. With your press though, for print heads are easy enough to move/install that if you don't like 3 & 7 you could move them on your own.

Think we touched on this in other threads, but with the more HSA inks we see the more I think it will become common to flash after every color. I bet we see a bigger shift to oval presses here in the states over the next few years.

[Squeeky]

considering that you'll always need at least 1 flash, ideally followed by a cool down station, you could certainly leave 2 heads off.

example:
our flash 'lives' in head 3...
and our cool down is head 4...

-- we run enough stuff where I sometimes want a double hit before the flash, and don't want the press 'double-hitting'.
-- and whenever possible I like to run a lint screen in head 1.

likely if I wanted to 'save' $5-10k ish, I could have left heads 3 and 4 off...

one thing to consider tho, if you're planning on keeping your press a long time, is that you can always 'cannibalize' parts from those other heads down the road to keep things running, and also, the resale is likely higher on a 'fully-loaded' press.

Love idea of your lint screen.  How did you set yours up?  Thanks for assist

[jvanick]

considering that you'll always need at least 1 flash, ideally followed by a cool down station, you could certainly leave 2 heads off.

example:
our flash 'lives' in head 3...
and our cool down is head 4...

-- we run enough stuff where I sometimes want a double hit before the flash, and don't want the press 'double-hitting'.
-- and whenever possible I like to run a lint screen in head 1.

likely if I wanted to 'save' $5-10k ish, I could have left heads 3 and 4 off...

one thing to consider tho, if you're planning on keeping your press a long time, is that you can always 'cannibalize' parts from those other heads down the road to keep things running, and also, the resale is likely higher on a 'fully-loaded' press.

Love idea of your lint screen.  How did you set yours up?  Thanks for assist

expose a screen... either use a bit of clear base to lubricate the squeegee or spray it with silicone spray.
spray back with a light coating of spray tack
put in head one with a worn squeegee (no flood bar)
set your squeegee pressure to just 'kiss' the top of the shirt... on our press it's around 10-15psi
every 400-500 shirts you'll probably want to dry brush/scrub it and re-apply the spray tack.

[Printficient]

Two words.....IQ Oval.

Four words..... Two Hundred Thousand Dollars.

Three words.... Worth Every Cent