The Hot Rod Gauntlet Thread

[Nick Bane]

You can make the print stroke shorter, but I've never seen it lengthened. (My life story)

we actually lengthened the print stroke on head 1 and 3 of our gauntlet.  i can get 21.5" print stroke on those heads.

[Gilligan]

Funny Chris, I was just about to send you a PM asking what ever came of your auto.

[ZooCity]

we actually lengthened the print stroke on head 1 and 3 of our gauntlet.  i can get 21.5" print stroke on those heads.

Say whaaaat?

[Homer]

we actually lengthened the print stroke on head 1 and 3 of our gauntlet.  i can get 21.5" print stroke on those heads.

Say whaaaat?

yeah, what he said...Imma go measure right now.

[Nick Bane]

It wasnt real easy, but with John Sheridans help we got it done.  lengthened the top bearing rods and the top steel mounting plate, holes machined in the plate, longer air cylinders, some extended airlines and cutting and moving some bracing.  like i said, not an easy job, but its doable.

[ZooCity]

Pictures.

[Nick Bane]

dont have any at the moment, ill see what i can get today.

[ZooCity]

Hot rodding tip for those with prior to '94 Gauntlets/Challengers:  the 1 1/16" SMC cylinders are not compatible with these presses unless you replace/update the squeegee holder bar.  Found this out the hard way yesterday when my guy "upgraded" our remaining heads only to find they can't freely chop when the kip levers are locked...dang.  The Bimba 1 1/16" in head 6 seems to be getting along just fine.  So there's a heads up for anyone wondering.  You can rod out the choppers but will need to make the hanger modification (or one of two other, more involved mods) if you want to go this big.  Otherwise, stick with 7/8"

Also, I need to stick a plug in here for David Heath/Press Tech.  The guy has been a great help for us this week.  I get parts from a variety of sources for our GT-6 and all have been great to us but today Press Tech gets a big high five.  Check out their parts sometime, thoughtfully organized, well priced and David is very knowledgeable on this vintage of M&R press.
http://presstech.net/m_and_r/gauntlets.html

[ZooCity]

Stroke cyls on these series 1 presses- rebuildable?

[mk162]

no, they are sealed units...they aren't that pricey though...just do them one at a time and they aren't bad.

[ZooCity]

Thx, I was looking at the wrong part, the ones for the RS are $175.  These are only like $75 per head to replace with new.

Slowing figuring out where to draw the line with this machine in terms of money and time spent trying to get it to print as clean as possible.  Certain design issues are just so great that it seems that no matter what we do, not matter how many parts we upgrade, some of the plastisol prints are just going to be sub par from what we do on the manual.  Thinking this press will ultimately be used for specific kinds of jobs while we save for a different machine.  Thank jebus we do mostly wb/dc here in low color counts!

[mk162]

the early model presses will out print a manual, i turned out some of the best prints we've ever done on our gauntlet.  they are fantastic presses...basic, but fantastic.

Why are you getting a better print on the manual?  What is better?

[ZooCity]

the early model presses will out print a manual, i turned out some of the best prints we've ever done on our gauntlet.  they are fantastic presses...basic, but fantastic.

Why are you getting a better print on the manual?  What is better?

Platen and print head deflection, affecting the top of the print, is why the manual will yield a superior print in some (well, most) cases. The "basic" part is no prob for me, can deal with and often prefer that but for all the things we've worked out successfully with the machine I can't find away around the deflection issue.

Didn't mean to sound whiny, we just pulled a job off the press before I posted that to go on the manual, exhausted all options on the GT, so I might've been a touch cranky with it.

I think the GTs are amazing and I will never have one thing to seriously bitch about with this press considering the low price we paid, availability of parts, incredible service/support (for a 23 yo press we didn't even purchase new!) it's reliability and how well built it is.  It may well have a forever home with us in some capacity. 

[mk162]

hmm, i had a little deflection on ours, maybe i had less because it was a 99.  i would get a really good tech in there to see if there is anything they recommend.  you shouldn't see a ton of deflection without a ton of pressure.

[Homer]

give it some more time zoo, we've called ours every name in the book and going from a manual to one of these oldies is a rather steep learning curve. I know that now, but back when we switched, we thought -hey, this can't be that hard?!...guess what...it is....they are great presses, we still have ours but only for the simple prints...sure beats the hell out of manual printing as long as it prints ok, it's when you are struggling through a job that you just want to kick the thing square in the balls....