Schulze (Blue-Line) 4-way press / get what you pay for?

[Postcard]

Initial order min. 1000 which we will need to produce in a few days. Thereafter variable/ same, seasonal.

[bms]

Initial order min. 1000 which we will need to produce in a few days. Thereafter variable/ same, seasonal.

I don't see that would be a problem - we have a customer that has a number of DF1 mug presses and had around 15,000 mugs from us in the past couple of months.

[Postcard]

I have an Adkins mug press and the quality is second to none, but you pay for the quality and tbh my £100 mug press does a decent enough job.

Thanks Justin, thats valuable info. 'decent enough job' v 'second to none' is what will sway our decision. Willing to invest in kit to obtain latter.

[Charlie_]

As an importer and product repairer it is good to deal with companies who have a machine they manufacture as they would then be able to back the product up. Having repaired a number of different machines we do understand the mechanism of the a press so I can comment that quality does matter and you do get what you pay for.

The cheap models are normally what you call bought of the shelf from china and are the pick of the day of what has been manufactured in high quantities. These machines are not produced for longevity, the workmanship is not consistent and sometimes the welds and electrics are not of good quality. Last year a local chap brought in one of the cheapest of cheap mug press bought on eBay to see if it could be repaired. When we opened it up it did not have a thermostat and wiring quality not good deeming it not repairable. It was quite unbelievable that such an unsafe product could be sold.

Sticking to companies who are willing to help and back up their product is much better. I like machines that are for eg. when something needs repairing that particular part can be taken off and sent back. This makes the product easy to send anywhere and shipping costs for the customer and seller reasonable. I'll give you another example we repaired a companies press that was something like 10 years old, excellent quality and we managed to source the spares and my partner who is a wiz with things like this repaired no problem. The machine weighed a ton and must've cost the company a bomb to cart it to us and back.

Keep that in mind when buying, if Serigaf is in driving distance the price would be worth paying. Their machines look like good quality similarly the same as Aadkins, Geo Knightley and Europa. Find out about the warranty and how is works thats the main backup you need. When it comes to pressing for eg with sublimation Sawgrass website is the best not only for this but for growing your business in numerous ways. They have free webinars etc when you sign up and even if you don't use sublimation using their knowledge in general business promotion is a must.

All the best!

very informative ..........................

[Jimbo]

When I first bought a flat bed heat press I had to send it back because of a bad fabrication problem. I

[Jimbo]

When I bought a flat bed heatpress I had to return it for a really bad fabrication fault. It was replaced and though it works ok, the temp is way off the digital readout according to a laser temp gun.
The general fabrication of this press is poor. Where the arm of some presses are connected to the platen by nuts and bolts, this one is held by 2 spots of weld.
Is this a cheap chinese press? No! it's a £1000 Britiish made press. While in general, price sometimes indicates quality, it's not always the case.
Looking at different suppliers websites, there is a mug press which looks to be the same, yet there are huge differences in the prices.

[Postcard]

As an importer and product repairer it is good to deal with companies who have a machine they manufacture as they would then be able to back the product up. Having repaired a number of different machines we do understand the mechanism of the a press so I can comment that quality does matter and you do get what you pay for. ..........All the best!

Valuable perspective. Thanks for taking the time to post.

[WorthDoingRight]

Well, I am going to buck the trend here and say that I would buy a number of cheaper mug presses to get the first 1000 mug order out. Then with the profits buy 1 or 2 better mug presses. I bought a cheap chinese mug press for £80, can buy replacement blankets for it for £15 (when needed) and I am very happy with the quality of the mugs it produces. If therefore you were going to spend £720 on 2 mug presses you could buy 9 cheap presses and complete your order 4.5 times faster. Also if you buy 2 and 1 breaks down you lose 50% of your production capacity. If you have 9 presses and lose 1 then you lose just 11% of production capacity.

[Andrew]

Postcard - Have you ever printed with dyesub before? Not sure if I am right but it seems this is going to be all new to you. If so and you mention second to none prints is what you are aiming for then it's going to be a big learning curve. There is far more to it than just getting the best press you can buy and it will be a long learning curve. Do you really want this learning curve to be on a very important run where quality is crucial? I would be wary of proceeding straight onto the main runs if you haven't had past experience.

Printer and profiles, mug choice, ink, paper and press timings/pressure will all come into it when producing a top quality print. Problem solving can take some time to get it all going in the right direction. Personally, I would outsource the big runs and learn the basics in the background with no pressure. Once your confidence builds then you can move production in-house. The amount of faulty prints you could get on a large run would probably end up costing more than outsourcing. When I started out I wouldn't fancy having the pressure of getting a 1000 order spot on.