Hat printing - Transfer or direct

[Maxie]

We print quite a few hats, at the moment we print transfers and iron them on with a hat press.
I see that Workhorse sells a hat printer, I'd like to hear from someone who has something like this.
Is it fast?     Efficient?      Quality of print?
One advantage of the transfers is that it does use the dryer, some of the hats have plastic parts that will melt at 320 degrees.
We print the transfers on our carousel.

[Sbrem]

We tried many of the hat presses over the years, including ones like that. They work, but are they worth it for multi-color work. We also had an old Advance system which had a mandrel attached to the squeegee handle that rotated the mandrel in the opposite direction of the print stroke, some what akin to a mug printer. Eventually, for unstructured hats, we like the Livingston Hat Champ, which lets you use your regular manual frames on a manual press. For structured, we find printing transfers is better...

Steve

[Frog]

We tried many of the hat presses over the years, including ones like that. They work, but are they worth it for multi-color work. We also had an old Advance system which had a mandrel attached to the squeegee handle that rotated the mandrel in the opposite direction of the print stroke, some what akin to a mug printer. Eventually, for unstructured hats, we like the Livingston Hat Champ, which lets you use your regular manual frames on a manual press. For structured, we find printing transfers is better...

Steve

Speaking of Advance, my old Phoenix dryer has a hat panel running along the side. Do any other dryers offer this today?

[Pangea]

We tried many of the hat presses over the years, including ones like that. They work, but are they worth it for multi-color work. We also had an old Advance system which had a mandrel attached to the squeegee handle that rotated the mandrel in the opposite direction of the print stroke, some what akin to a mug printer. Eventually, for unstructured hats, we like the Livingston Hat Champ, which lets you use your regular manual frames on a manual press. For structured, we find printing transfers is better...

Steve

Speaking of Advance, my old Phoenix dryer has a hat panel running along the side. Do any other dryers offer this today?

I have a little Ranar DX200 that has a panel you can rotate for hats.

[Frog]

We tried many of the hat presses over the years, including ones like that. They work, but are they worth it for multi-color work. We also had an old Advance system which had a mandrel attached to the squeegee handle that rotated the mandrel in the opposite direction of the print stroke, some what akin to a mug printer. Eventually, for unstructured hats, we like the Livingston Hat Champ, which lets you use your regular manual frames on a manual press. For structured, we find printing transfers is better...

Steve

Speaking of Advance, my old Phoenix dryer has a hat panel running along the side. Do any other dryers offer this today?

I have a little Ranar DX200 that has a panel you can rotate for hats.

My original Ranar Scamp allowed me to tilt the panel, but this advance has a full chamber-length 6" tall panel perpendicular to the belt. Pretty sweet, (if I used it, LOL)

[Sbrem]

we use a 2" prop under the bill of the first hat, then stack the others bill on crown as they go down the dryer, they've always cured just fine. I do remember the side panel for hats, thought it was pretty cool at the time, but didn't need it.

Steve

[livinthedream]

We use a 4 station 4 color CAPZ printer and cure the hats via the cap flash they sell as well. Never had any come back, although majority of our hats are now embroidered.