Whenever the topic of print quality on press arises, the conversation will usually drift to the topic of off contact. This is one of the most critical parts of the print equation.
You've had a great year, and you've invested in a new manual press, dryer, and exposure system, but there's still money left in the bank. Your accountant says you've either got to invest it or give it to Uncle Sam. You've spent a lot of time at tradeshows coveting those...
The screen frame is one of the most critical links in screen printing. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most overlooked. Many problems attributed to...
A key ingredient in print productivity is the life of the stencil. With automatic presses now configured to eighteen colors or more, the chances of the press going down because of screen failure are quite high.
True process color printing on textiles has been around for about 30 years. Any screen printer who has tried it knows that printing halftone color on a fabric surface is much different than if it were printed on paper.
Color-to-color fit is one of my pet peeves. I hate out of register images, especially ones that have made it to the general public. It takes so little to make it right in the first place.
It never ceases to amaze me that the most neglected item in nearly all screen printing facilities is the screen itself. Many of us have come to accept poor screens as...
Your ability to see and communicate color is critical to professionally reproducing designs. In our highly competitive market, understanding color makes the difference between a delighted client and one who is disappointed with the final result.
M&R makes the most high quality screen printing equipment in the world. Even with that said, parts get old and can wear out. Usually, at the worst possible time. It’s times like those that we’re glad we chose M&R as our equipment manufacturer. Even years after the sale, we can count on M&R 24/7. They are part of the fabric that is Ink Brigade. An instrumental partner in our success.
A frantic call in the middle of the night is always met on the other end of the line by an experienced member of their service staff who expertly diagnoses my issue, and starts the process of solving our problem.
No matter the age, or oddball part, the parts department makes sure I’ll have what I need the next morning. My printing crew hardly misses a beat and we don’t miss the deadline. That makes for happy customers and makes me appreciate M&R more and more every year. We rest easy knowing people like Dan Goldberg and the rest of the service and parts departments are working hard for us behind the scenes every day.
The Sprint 3000 is superb and we are really, really happy with it. We've got the recipes dialed in for our inks now and it's running great. We have noticed improvements in the finish on our plastisols, too. They seem to be coming through much softer. Assuming it's because we are much more efficiently curing than with the electric curers!
We have had our Gauntlet III in production for nearly 3 months and have been thrilled with the machine. We have already put over 120,000 impressions on the machine and it is still going strong. We have found that the individual off-contact for each printhead helps with various printing techniques. It is also a plus to be able to adjust in 1/16” increments when needed. Our first job was a 9-color on dark apparel with a 17” print stroke and one flash. We were able to run the machine comfortably at 920 pieces per hour. The addition of the laser for print placements has saved us valuable time where we used to mark our pallets with a T-Square. The touchscreen interface is very user friendly and easy to make adjustments when needed.
Having a built-in maintenance schedule [M&R’s Maintenance Minder™] for the machine is another perk and allows management to easily assure that the presses are being properly maintained. We have not had any problems to date with the machine but are at ease knowing that all parts that we could ever need are able to be overnighted to us.
Overall, we have seen an increase in our production numbers due to the efficiencies gained with the newest technology on the market. We are able to run as fast as we can clear a screen and dry our underbase.
Simply put, the Gauntlet III is a beast and is built to run 24/7/365.
The Hornet has been the most reliable and production driven automatic press in our shop. From day one our operators have done nothing but compliment the press. It’s built for real shops that need consistency, speed, and durability without overcomplicating the operator experience. From the day we installed it the Hornet became a workhorse on our production floor. It has handled everything from high volume to detailed multi color runs without hesitation.
What makes the Hornet stand out is its balance between performance and usability. Registration is tight, micro adjustments are responsive, and the press holds settings job after job. Once a design is dialed in, we can repeat it with confidence which is critical when you’re running reorders, program work, or large event merchandise.
The FLAT (important!) indexing is smooth, print stroke is consistent, the micros are easily adjustable and accessible knobs, and the overall build quality is exactly what you’d expect from M&R. They’re heavy duty and built to last. It keeps up with demanding production schedules without creating maintenance headaches or unnecessary downtime.
From an efficiency standpoint, the Hornet allows us to move faster without sacrificing print quality. Operators can stay in rhythm due to the flat indexing, setups are streamlined due to ease of registration, it has a FIVE year warranty, and it’s customized with our press name CND’d directly onto it.
In short, it does exactly what a production press should do, but even better. It runs clean, runs consistent, and runs all day quietly. The M&R Hornet has been a key piece of equipment in scaling our screen printing capabilities and it continues to prove itself as a dependable backbone of our shop floor.
We believe the M&R Hornet represents the durability, performance, and production reliability shops depend on every day. Think of the Cobra but the price point is unbelievable. Screen in here to stay and M&R is doubling down on that with this series of presses. You don’t see any other company innovating in screen printing like M&R is.
Our new i-Image ST is the biggest improvement to prepress we’ve ever seen. It’s eliminated our need for film, and unlike film, digital images are easy to store and retrieve, making blown-screen replacement a snap.
i-Image ST has improved our screen quality, increased screen-generation speed, and reduced cost. Screen production is way up because we’ve cut exposure times by 75%. And i-Image has virtually eliminated post-processing screen touch-ups. We could never produce screens of this quality—or at this speed—the conventional way. Our CTS screens are unmatched.
Multi-screen jobs come out perfectly registered, and since i-Image ST pre-registers screens for Tri-Loc, our entire prepress process, from screen prep to registration, has been cut dramatically.
Our i-Image ST will probably end up being one of the fastest returns on investment we’ve ever had.
