I'd like to post my thoughts and frustrations here regarding getting an affordable quality screen rack / cart for our shop.
As we grow we i find we need more and more screen carts and racks. We're at a size where I don't want to waste my time building something out of wood or putting something jankey together to save money.
At the same time I don't want to spend more money on steel shelf than i did on my laptop just because i don't have the time to mess with it.
We've have/had all kinds of screen racks at the shop with different levels of success and frustration.
So let's start at the bottom.
The bakers rack / generic
This is the rack that every supplier seems to sell. Most of these don't actually fit newman roller frames. They are to wide. So if your not careful putting frames in you could have all your frames come crashing down on top of each other. With all the time i spend work hardening our mesh i don't feel like having a mass screen popa-palooza because of poor engineering of my screen rack manufacturer.
NRF can be heavy. Even the M3ULs. Sliding the aluminum on top of the aluminum isn't always the smoothest thing in he world.
They feel cheesy, again all those work hardened frames.. I don't want to trust it in that rack.
Middle of the road:
http://www.microperfect.net/CatalogFolder/PriceList5.htmThese guys… They get it right in so many ways. The prices are perfect. Their stumbling point is a big one for us. They build racks for 23X31 so the front and rear of the frame are what slide on the rack. Not the sides of the frame. The problem with this at least for us is we can't put 23X31 and 23X33 frames on the same cart! This is really inconvenient. I talked to the guy over the phone a number of times and it's hard to communicate with him. Same story with email. It's really to bad.
High End:
Stretch Devices Screen Racks:
Perfect in every way. A screen printers dream. Fits 23X31 23X33 25X36 all in the same bullet proof rack. If there is an earthquake i will stand in that rack for safety. Problem. It's incredibly expensive.
In my opinion a screen rack should be:
Able to hold 23X33 - 25X36 Newman Roller Frames easily
Made from steel and be nice and rigid.
Powder coated, no sharp edges.
Decent casters - good load handling and rubber please, don't skimp on these it just makes us frustrated.
Shouldn't retail for more that a halfway decent flatscreen tv. Remember.. It's just a shelf!
$300 for 24 slots would be perfect.
Why is this so impossible to find?