M&R attachment to print on hats?

[Mark @ Hurricane Printing]

I have an M&R Chameleon and I may be getting an order to silk screen on hats. I am looking on the M&R site for some kind of attachmnet for hats. I have not located anything yet.....what do I need, and where do I get a "pallet" or "pallet attachment to be able to screen print on hats?

(I did mention that embroidery is the way to go on hats but they want silk screen.)

So if anyone can point me in the right direction I'd greatly appreciate it!

[Sbrem]

You may want to do them on a manual press if there aren't that many, but try Action Engineering, they make a lot of attachments.

Steve

[JBLUE]

You can try the Hat Champ and see if it will work. We run one on a Hix and have good results with it.

http://www.livingstonsystems.com/HatChamp.html

[Mark @ Hurricane Printing]

You may want to do them on a manual press if there aren't that many, but try Action Engineering, they make a lot of attachments.

Steve

My press is a manual..i'll look up the company you listed.

[Mark @ Hurricane Printing]

You can try the Hat Champ and see if it will work. We run one on a Hix and have good results with it.

http://www.livingstonsystems.com/HatChamp.html

was just watching the youtube for this. I did read a review that the pallet is set to high and you have to max out your off contact just to get the screen at the right height.

[Frog]

A little general information, not a big help for the M&R question directly.

Hats are a whole new ball game. They introduce a new dimension, literally, since they are not flat!

Direct printing takes two different directions, the obvious one is the "hold 'em down flat" approach that utilizes a special hold down clamp like the Livingston.
These allow the use of a standard screen, but don't hold all hats the same. Still probably the least painful overall for change.

There are also stand-alone presses that use this principle. Somewhere I even have an old single color example in my storage area.

Others, utilize a curved platen and special pivoting screen holder (with an uber thin rear frame section to clear the brim.) I don't remember off hand, if these are available as add-ons, but the CAPS system was originally built on presses using this system.

Those who get into hats also soon learn that some art is more friendly to the hat shape than others. Some shapes just show up the inherent distortion.
I avoid squares and rectangles, and go for triangle and arch shapes whenever possible.

[3Deep]

Try workhorse they have a curve cap attachment and it just might fit an M&R manual press, we have printed plenty of caps on ours in the pass even though its just one at a time, but with the right ink and setup you fly thru them.

Darryl

[Frog]

In fact, those as well as the CAPS machine use special curved screens,, and not the pivoting heads that I mentioned and incorrectly attributed to the CAPS system.

http://www.workhorseproducts.com/images/pdf/brochures/cap_2012.pdf

[inkstain]

Like Frog mentioned.
Printing hats is a whole nother deal.
I print a ton of trucker hats and have tried so many different things:
Hat champ:  worked, but its tuff to always print your design straight.
Action Engineering attachment:  DID not work!  Totally distorts your image.
Workhorse hat press is what I ended up with.  I didn't like the little mesh screens they provide.  I just got frames and
put my own mesh in with a tighter tension and it works good.  It takes time to learn how to print on a curved platen, also
its a little tricky printing with your mesh touching the hat. 
Let me know if you have any questions about it.  Cheers!

[ZooCity]

print transfers.  eliminates many of these problems. 

[Gilligan]

print transfers.  eliminates many of these problems.

I was gonna say order transfers but that's only because I haven't attempted printing transfers yet.

I bought a hat press off TSF for pretty cheap as a just in case move.

[Rockers]

I have an M&R Chameleon and I may be getting an order to silk screen on hats. I am looking on the M&R site for some kind of attachmnet for hats. I have not located anything yet.....what do I need, and where do I get a "pallet" or "pallet attachment to be able to screen print on hats?

(I did mention that embroidery is the way to go on hats but they want silk screen.)

So if anyone can point me in the right direction I'd greatly appreciate it!

Action Engineering do one that seems to be nice and simple to use http://www.actionengineering.com/Cat-192-1-1131/Hat_Pallet.htm
Don`t buy the Hat Champ, I bought one of Ryonet and it does not fit my press even though I gave them all the important info. And it broke right away as the welding was very poor.

[inkstain]

I have an M&R Chameleon and I may be getting an order to silk screen on hats. I am looking on the M&R site for some kind of attachmnet for hats. I have not located anything yet.....what do I need, and where do I get a "pallet" or "pallet attachment to be able to screen print on hats?

(I did mention that embroidery is the way to go on hats but they want silk screen.)

So if anyone can point me in the right direction I'd greatly appreciate it!

Action Engineering do one that seems to be nice and simple to use http://www.actionengineering.com/Cat-192-1-1131/Hat_Pallet.htm
Don`t buy the Hat Champ, I bought one of Ryonet and it does not fit my press even though I gave them all the important info. And it broke right away as the welding was very poor.

I bought the action engineering hat pallet when it came out.  I print only trucker hats with foam front and man i thought it would be awesome.
To my dismay, it didn't work.  You have to wrap the cap around the little pallet like the hatchamp but the bill faces toward the press, hatchamp faces toward you.  Any way, you have to stretch the cap so much that after you print your design and open the clamp, your design is completely tweaked like a rainbow shape!!!  Not good!  I tried again and again and it did it to all designs.  Action was kind enough to accept the rig back and refund me fully.  thats my 3 cents.

[Rockers]

Since we had that issue with the Hat Champ we now only use digital transfers for the caps. They cost us around a $1.80 pc.