How do you keep shirts from dragging the ground?

[Prince Art]

You know what I'm talking about: long sleeves, plus sizes, odd placement that has most of the shirt dangling. How do you keep these from dragging the ground as you print?

It's all well & good to just baby a few 4XLs on a run - but what do you do when the whole run, or a large part of it, could drag the floor?

I know Frog mentioned something about this in a past thread, but I can't find it. If Our Illustrious Administrator would care to share again, I'm all ears. And curious to know how others deal with this, too.

[Screen Dan]

We used to line the path with clean cardboard.  That did the trick every time.  We usually have plenty of extra shirt boxes.

[Homer]

we put some cut up boxes on the floor. OR sling the arms of long sleeves over the platen arm. depends on how many we have to run.

[Frog]

I have a cut-off short sleeve on each arm, past the board, in which I tuck the offending fabric.

[Doug B]

  Cardboard here also.

[mk162]

We actually put the press on hydraulics to lift it up high enough to not drag.

Just kidding, we use cardboard.

[inkman996]

we simply flip the hanging part (sleeve,leg,huge shirt) over the pallet arm right behind the palette. This works perfectly for our press but I don't know if it would work for others.

[dirkdiggler]

cardboard here.

[Shanarchy]

We have an S Roque and tuck them into the holes on the pallet arms.

Before that we would use cardboard and/or a short sleeve shirt sleeve to tuck the bottoms in as Frog showed.

[jvanick]

Rolls of Kraft paper work very well too.  Cut off pieces for around the press.  Plus you can use it for keeping the ink and glue off the floor.

[Prince Art]

Awesome, thanks for all the replies. And thanks for the visual, Frog! And Shanarchy, too!

I've got a job coming up printing on hoodie pockets. In my config, that means almost the entire thing is dumped upside down - body, hood, then sleeves. That's just more of the garment than I wanted to drag around, even on a relatively clean surface. I was wondering about something to help hold some of the weight, too. So the "tuck it up" examples are along the lines I was thinking. Any other brilliant ideas, happy to hear them.

We actually put the press on hydraulics to lift it up high enough to not drag.

Just kidding, we use cardboard.

What, you mean that's not an option on the high end presses? 

[Shanarchy]

I would probably just do the shirt sleeve idea but make a bigger loop with material, rope, etc to hold it up. Then probably put cardboard down for "just in case".

[3Deep]

I just tuck the long sleeve inside of the neck of the shirt, guess I'm the only one here that does that

[Prince Art]

I just tuck the long sleeve inside of the neck of the shirt, guess I'm the only one here that does that

That's actually a good idea for long sleeves - I'm surprised I've never heard of it/thought of it. Seems kind of obvious, now that you say it. Won't help with my hoodie job (or plus sizes), but I'll keep that tip in mind for the future. Thanks!

[alan802]

We used to do the cardboard thing, but for years we've been loading sleeve prints through the neck and they don't hang down far enough to touch the ground.