DSF

think we'll probably go with the Adkins anyway, just gotta decide which model and where to purchase! new mug wrap for our chinese press is arriving tomorrow, so that should get us through the orders we have on at the moment anyway.

I bought my Adkins (Flat Press) from xPress who offer premium members here a deal - I will be investing in a proper mug press from them soon.. very pleased with my Adkins

NikGrey;79897 wrote:I bought my Adkins (Flat Press) from xPress who offer premium members here a deal - I will be investing in a proper mug press from them soon.. very pleased with my Adkins

Thanks Nik,

I'm gonna get in touch with Xpres tomorrow and see what they can do for me!

Hi all,

Just as a followup, we went with an Adkins Multi Press from Xpres, and it has arrived today! (DPD must be sending out normal deliveries on saturdays to keep up with the Christmas rush!)

Haven't had a chance to use the press properly yet, but I can say that on first impressions this thing is built like a tank. Absolutely no comparison to our existing press. Will hopefully get to press some mugs this evening with it!

Thanks to all for the good advice.

Kevin

Hi again everybody,

Just thought I'd share some thoughts on the Adkins, from what I've observed so far!

On first impressions this thing is built like a tank...much higher quality then i've ever seen or used before.

The wraps themselves feel much better then the chinese ones, and I might be imagining things, but the print quality on the mugs seems to look slightly better to my eye.

There are a few strange things I've noticed about the press:

We always use a dummy mug while bringing the press up to temperature, but with this press as soon as you put a mug in and close the press, the timer starts counting down, so you can't actually see what temp the press is at. There is a light that flashes to say the temp is increasing though, and another that turns on when it's reached temp so it's just a question of getting used to it. Just a bit of a niggly thing to get used to!

Another one is that from what I can see, when you want to increase either the time/temp, you have to go one degree/second at a time. Yesterday I made the mistake of clearing the timer back to 10 seconds, so I had to press the button 170 times to get it back to 180 seconds (and it beeps every time!!)...that was annoying, but generally most mugs will be around the same temp/time.

Only other thing I've noticed is that the manual recommends extremely light pressure, with the element just lightly touching the mug. I've tried this out and while it prints perfectly on most of the mugs, I was doing one that required the image to be very close to the top/bottom of the mug, and it faded slightly towards the bottom where the mug tapers away, but I reckon this will just be a question of increasing the pressure a bit. They give a recommended print size in the manual, which to be honest we are printing images both closer to the handle, and top/bottom then this, so can't really complain!

Other then those little things though, which I reckon will be just a question of getting used to, I'd highly recommend the press!

With my Adkins mug presses I can just get it to close onto the warm up mug enough so that the timer doesn't kick in.....but it's a bit tricky and sometimes pops open! lol. Can't remember if you can hold the button down....I think mine may well be the same in that you have to keep pressing but once it's set that's it.

They do recommend light pressure which is better for the blanket but I've also found that it won't do a full wrap that way so mine are always on quite firm. Both Adkins presses have done a good number of mugs so I don't think it causes any undue issues but may well reduce the blanket life.

Thanks Justin.

I tried like you said in another thread earlier in the year, to just close the handle a bit without clamping it fully, but without closing it fully the handle just falls backwards so won't stay in contact with the mug!

I'm going to have to try increasing the pressure for my full wraps alright...we're low on stock of mugs at the moment so can't do too much experimentation until BMS are back in stock next week!