Discuss the different types of equipment needed for screen printing. Topics include manual screen printing presses, automatic presses, dryers, folding machines, starter kits and high end machines.
So I have been using our new 4 station, 10 color press for a couple weeks now and all I can say is... WOW! This thing is amazing. It weighs over 1400 lbs and I had to take it apart into five separate pieces to get it through the door. It came all assembled in a huge crate. The sturdiness and quality of workmanship is amazing. It will easily out live me. All the bearings are extremely smooth and the micro registration system is incredibly easy to use. Moving pallets is intuitive and simple. It makes our other 4 color, 4 station look and feel like an antique toy. Now I just have to make a 10-color shirt design. Although this press is one of the most expensive available, I can easily see why.
I do have one question for anyone else with one of these... How do you deal with screens that are 20x23 or 20x24? They seem almost too small for the press (the imagable area is quite far down on the pallet.)
Move the pallets down... or up... Anyway, Mount the screen then move the pallets to the position you need.
I guess I should be more clear, with the pallets as close to the screen clamps (with a little room for the shirt between) the screen goes out to 19" where as the pallet extends to 22. You can't really take the squeegee to the edge of the screen, so really the design must beat least 4-5 inches from the end of the pallet. This causes a problem with shirts that are small becuase the design ends up being down pretty low on the shirt.
The bottom of the screen clamp would end up hitting the pallet if I adjusted it any closer in.
I think I understand. Our Chameleon has side air clamps, maybe that's the difference. we could clamp the 20X24 wooden frames out in the clamps to bring the design further up on an adult pallet. Once we switched to the auto sized frames and used a tri-lock, it got even easier.
New Press! M&R Chameleon 
