How do you press your coasters?

[Mrteajunkie]

I tried single coasters taping a single image to individual coasters - too time consuming

I tried jig pressing 6 coasters at a time using a template and mdf jig from mdp - great but so much room for error I found I wasted far more coasters than I would have liked.

It looks like the mdf jig has warped a little after a few uses which even with a high pressure meant that one of the coasters would always turn out blotchy.
Lining up the printed template with the jig was easy enough but with one serious flaw, if the image was not perfectly aligned when it passed through the printer (skewed slightly) then all 6 coasters are heading for the bin.

I found sometimes the printer would print closer to one end shifting the whole template a cm down the sheet or up. This left all 6 images out of place too.

I now have returned to the single coaster method.
Printing my own coaster template using 95x95mm rounded squares x6 with a black stroke to mark the edges.
when printed I cut the sheet into 6 and tape individually.

It’s a shame there isn’t a clear jig where you can see the alignment to the sheet and flip over and press.

[UK Printed Mugs]

Yes, no jigs we found work well. We print well over 1000 coasters a week and indeed each one is taped individually (3 sides) but the speed of doing this is literally only 2-3 seconds per coaster when we get into a rhythm. Depending on which press we use we can either press 16 at a time or 64.

[Mrteajunkie]

When i tape them one at a time i press 12 leaving a nice gap around each one.
Well im glad to know im not the only one that struggled with jigs.

[John G]

I had some jigs laser cut and they worked OK - think it was 6 up on A4. They did warp but turn them round for the next press and it seemed to do the job. I also had to up the press time a little as there was a blotchy problem - this cured that.