Author Topic: Anyone know who might have 23x33 M3 Roller Frames in stock or used?  (Read 2168 times)

Offline ZooCity

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Looking to pickup half a dozen or so asap.  I totally spaced that we can only print about 16" long with 23x31 and our Sporty won't accept a 25x36 so need to hustle up some 33" long frames for a longer print coming up. 

Thx in advance for any help. 


Online ericheartsu

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Re: Anyone know who might have 23x33 M3 Roller Frames in stock or used?
« Reply #1 on: February 23, 2015, 04:28:07 PM »
I saw some larger ones on ebay this weekend, but they may be to large
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Offline mimosatexas

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Re: Anyone know who might have 23x33 M3 Roller Frames in stock or used?
« Reply #2 on: February 23, 2015, 04:52:54 PM »
Why the 16" limit with 23x31?  I regularly print 20+" manually, so just curious about the limit on your auto.

Offline cclaud3

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Re: Anyone know who might have 23x33 M3 Roller Frames in stock or used?
« Reply #3 on: February 23, 2015, 05:03:01 PM »
Should be because the floodbar + distance between it and the squeegee + front/rear screen holders.

Offline mimosatexas

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Re: Anyone know who might have 23x33 M3 Roller Frames in stock or used?
« Reply #4 on: February 23, 2015, 05:12:49 PM »
even if the frame is 2" wide, that would give a good 4.5" on each end for squeegee and floodbar and a 20" print.  Do you need 6.5" on both ends with a sporty?  That seems kind of crazy to me for some reason...

I'm genuinely curious, not trying to be a dick or anything.

Offline GKitson

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Re: Anyone know who might have 23x33 M3 Roller Frames in stock or used?
« Reply #5 on: February 23, 2015, 05:13:38 PM »
Looking to pickup half a dozen or so asap.  I totally spaced that we can only print about 16" long with 23x31 and our Sporty won't accept a 25x36 so need to hustle up some 33" long frames for a longer print coming up. 

Thx in advance for any help.

I've got some, e-mail me at greg@mindseyeg.com and we can discuss.

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Offline cclaud3

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Re: Anyone know who might have 23x33 M3 Roller Frames in stock or used?
« Reply #6 on: February 23, 2015, 05:27:09 PM »
even if the frame is 2" wide, that would give a good 4.5" on each end for squeegee and floodbar and a 20" print.  Do you need 6.5" on both ends with a sporty?  That seems kind of crazy to me for some reason...

I'm genuinely curious, not trying to be a dick or anything.

I don't know the exact distance between the flood & squeegee on that press but if he wants to flood the entire image then the floodbar won't go all the way to the top and it will run into the backend of the screen with a full stroke. The gap between the flood & squeegee has to accounted for on both ends. Even with that I though the advertised length was 18" but I'm not sure on what year (if that matters) of his press. Depending on the image the advertised max can be cheated.

Offline ZooCity

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Re: Anyone know who might have 23x33 M3 Roller Frames in stock or used?
« Reply #7 on: February 23, 2015, 08:37:01 PM »
Thanks in advance Greg. 

mimosa, before using a number of them, I would have thought the same.  Carriage clearance can be a bit of a drag on autos.  6-6.5" is needed from the inside of the front of the frame, a little less at the back.  The reason we can only get a roughly 16" long print out of a 31" long frame on our Sportsman EX 1618 is the back of the flood would smack into the rear micro if you went longer than that so M&R has the bumpers set to keep the carriage assy about 1/2" or so away from the gear on the back holder.  Thus, you need to move back the rear screen holder to get the full stroke, which means you need a 2" longer frame: 16+2=18" 

The 2020 models have the 20" stroke and a larger footprint, kinda wish ours was one of those so we could just keep 23x31 and 25x36 but with as much flex/upward deflection as there is on our 1618 print heads I would have to know if they built the heads stronger on the larger diameter models; deflection issues only get worse as you go bigger/longer on the print head components. 

The part about "cheating" the max image length involves angling your flood and squeegee to max out by another 1" or whatever you can get.  We don't go for this since we use winged floods and also because we print so much runny wb ink that it's going to try and puddle back into the image area if the ink well sits too close to the image area.  It's also a little bit of a pain because you're adjusting angle to accommodate a print that's larger than the machine was intended to do v. adjusting angle for optimal printing and flooding, but it's a good trick to have in your bag.

Offline mimosatexas

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Re: Anyone know who might have 23x33 M3 Roller Frames in stock or used?
« Reply #8 on: February 24, 2015, 11:51:35 AM »
Great info, and a little disappointing at the same time.  While I still am probably a ways away from buying an auto, I was trying to more or less get myself ready (all 23x31 frames etc).  I print tons of stuff that is 18+" long on my manual, maybe 1/3 or more of my jobs at the moment.  Lots of long back roster style prints for schools, lots of big fashion stuff for those little clothing brands, etc.

Offline ZooCity

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Re: Anyone know who might have 23x33 M3 Roller Frames in stock or used?
« Reply #9 on: February 24, 2015, 12:40:31 PM »
Great info, and a little disappointing at the same time.  While I still am probably a ways away from buying an auto, I was trying to more or less get myself ready (all 23x31 frames etc).  I print tons of stuff that is 18+" long on my manual, maybe 1/3 or more of my jobs at the moment.  Lots of long back roster style prints for schools, lots of big fashion stuff for those little clothing brands, etc.

I think it's ideal to run 25x36.  Sure, it's more mesh/emulsion/heavier frame but you have so much versatility, a bigger "sweet spot" and could gang probably all of your screens if so desired.  Downside is a larger footprint on the machines that take that screen size.   

For us, we rarely need to print wider than 12-13" considering most of our runs include XS fashion fit Ts and that would put the print over the seams.  But we do seem to have a need to print long fairly often so we'll squeak by having the ability to put a 33" long frame in one of our presses.  Otherwise, yeah, it would have to go on the manual but many of these jobs would be brutal on the manual, printing 500ish pcs of 6color wb/dc manually is no fun at all anymore and I only have one staff member who can do it at this point and they will get flagged out pretty quickly doing that kind of work.  Honestly, I don't know how I used to do it, it takes such a physical toll on the body. 

Offline Sparkie

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Re: Anyone know who might have 23x33 M3 Roller Frames in stock or used?
« Reply #10 on: February 24, 2015, 12:54:10 PM »
Looking to pickup half a dozen or so asap.  I totally spaced that we can only print about 16" long with 23x31 and our Sporty won't accept a 25x36 so need to hustle up some 33" long frames for a longer print coming up. 

Thx in advance for any help.


If 25 x 33 will work, I've got 5 (no mesh) sitting around collecting dust. http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,13437.0.html
- Mark

Offline ZooCity

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Re: Anyone know who might have 23x33 M3 Roller Frames in stock or used?
« Reply #11 on: February 24, 2015, 01:02:30 PM »
Looking to pickup half a dozen or so asap.  I totally spaced that we can only print about 16" long with 23x31 and our Sporty won't accept a 25x36 so need to hustle up some 33" long frames for a longer print coming up. 

Thx in advance for any help.


If 25 x 33 will work, I've got 5 (no mesh) sitting around collecting dust. http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php/topic,13437.0.html


Ah, we'd have to go every other head with those, no fun without a double index mode!  Thanks though.  Also, I've never seen corners like that on Newmans, interesting looking.