[BroJames]

Glass platens on commercial line table press

And commercial carousel press too

Is anyone familiar with "BUZZ"? Does glass have any advantage over aluminum or metal platens?

 

[ScreenFoo]

I load glass on regular platens on a regular basis, mostly for weird loads and specialty printing... But a platen that is ONLY made of glass would make me the tiniest bit nervous.

It is likely to be of a much better tolerance than plywood, or even melamine laminate though.

I'd be interested in how that rotary affixes those platens to the index arms, however.

As for advantages, besides a very flat surface if produced well, I would suppose it might be less expensive.

 

[BroJames]

In furnitures, glass are affixed onto metal plates by a kind glue. But I think silicone would do the job.

I am also wondering what those horizontal bars at the end of the platens(printer side) are.

 

[tpitman]

Looks to me like those horizontal bars and the square plate just underneath them are there to insure that loading a shirt is as difficult as possible. Actually, maybe it's to hold the end of the screen off the platen so that the mesh releases cleanly as the squeegie is pulled or pushed, but it'll make loading a shirt more difficult.

 

[BroJames]

Actually, extremely difficult and time consuming unless you can pull the bar out like a drawer. Just difficult if you can. If its to ensure even off contact it seems like an awful complex way to do it

 

[ScreenFoo]

I'd have to assume they haven't heard of taping a few coins under the screen or to the end of the platen...

Those print heads don't exactly look very solid, or confidence inspiring.... I'm normally not a fan of big heavy rear clamps, but these.... Wow.

I would suppose any number of glues would work, but then you'd almost have to have them glued to some part that could be removed, unless it was a one style platen press only. Seems like it would be inadvisable to do pocket prints or unbalanced pressure strokes on it.

It would be very stylish for serving cocktails and hors d'oeuvres though...

 

[PhilR]

Is anyone familiar with "BUZZ"? Does glass have any advantage over aluminum or metal platens?

Funnily enough I've just come across this exact same system whilst browsing the 'net. I don't know where the "Buzz" name came from but that photo is actually an edited picture of an Adelco press. Here's the original picture:

As you can see the arms drop down for loading. I still couldn't quite figure out how it was supposed to work though until it occured to me; this is a line-table style carousel! And the clamps on the centre section arn't actually hinged, they're just there to hold the screens. Pretty interesting as I've not seen this kind of system on a commercial press design before.

 

[BroJames]

Nice find Phil.

The arms of their "Headless Carousel" are indeed fixed and for "parking" frames but I wonder why they put 2 knobs in the clamp when 1 will do to accommodate various frame thickness? The press seems over-designed. Having the registration bar on the inside of the carousel would be much simpler
[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr-pJuYp7kA&feature=related[/MEDIA]

This is their regular carousel

 

[PhilR]

Looks like a nice bit of kit though. Probably hellishly expensive haha.

 

[orion001]

hello, just want to add that this press was designed by a local sceeenprinting distributor here in the Philippines, they are also the local distributors of adelco products. they asked adelco if they could design a press like this. that is why it is called the BUZZ here localy and you can see the distributors name which is ndpi. but for international sales i think that adelco is the oe who handles it since it is their machine. i talked to the owner of NDPI i think last September when there was a local show here. also the front rails are used as registration guides. and roughly the price for the 8stations is 320-350k php roughly equivaent to 7.5-8k USD.

 

[BroJames]

Adelco is based in UK so it is possible that it the retail in UK is in the vicinity of GBP 2,000.

I'd rather use a press like this [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr-pJuYp7kA&feature=related[/media] and yours(with the registration bar at the far end of the platen)
which probably cost only about 5% of the ridiculous P320-350k or US$7.5-8k over-designed line table system.

I just don't see any advantage to the adelco/buzz headless carousel press with the fancy and expensive drop down registration bar.

Anyway, this thread is about glass platens and I do wonder why adelco opted to use glass.

 

[PhilR]

Anyway, this thread is about glass platens and I do wonder why adelco opted to use glass.

Probably just for something as banal as "because it looks good". If you're already over-engineering your goods then pointless cosmetic touches are normal.

 

[sams_igc]

A glass platen would also be useful with an uplight for tweaking registration. I've seen glass vacuum tables for printing flatstock with flourescent uplights. A bit scary though on a spinning rotary, looks a lot safer on the inliner setup.

 

[diypo]

OT lang po @BroJames sir meron ako ginawang line table na glass ang platen ang tanong ko po is kung 16x24 ang platen dapat po ba sa same size din ang screen frame tnxs... pasensya na newbie lang