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JBDesign
04-12-2013, 01:08 PM
Just an odd thought I had the other day. Is the pressure of a heat press ( minus the heat ) sufficient to print lino cuts or other block prints? Not that i do lino cuts but i was curious as one day I might want to as i like the medium. . .
Bizarre question of the week, sorry ;-)
Jon

pisquee
04-12-2013, 02:24 PM
well, if you used the press with the heat on, you could do sublimation lino cuts....

daviddeer
04-12-2013, 04:13 PM
The best way to deboss lino is to get a hot foil press. Debossing leather is very hard as you need around .25 tonnes pressure per sq" so usually a hydraulic press is used. Lino is easily cut but has immense compressive resistance so you would need around .40-.50 tonnes per sq" to have any effect.
For prints you need a hard very flat bed for the ink to be evenly laid on the medium as the pressure is spread over the whole sheet evenly. I suspect the softness of the bed of the press would be an issue but if you remove the padding leaving a bare metal base and upper plate the down-force may be spread evenly. Most printers use a force of 2,500 to 2,700 psi which can be approximated using an old mangle if you can get the same force from your press over it's entire surface I would be surprised. I would try and old book press, fly press or mangle before ripping your heat press to bits. If your not fussed about the final quality of the result just use thin paper and a rubber roller like we used to in school before the H&S guys came along and took all our sharp cutting tools away.:frown: Ahh those were the days, pouring flammable liquids down the sink and watching the chemistry lab puffing blue flame when the Bunsen burners were lit.

JBDesign
04-12-2013, 05:49 PM
Ah, thanks for that. Really interesting. I won't be trying it anytime soon then. I had heard about the old mangle route, I think there is a printer that calls herself 'Mangleprints' somewhere round here. Maybe one day I will get hold of one, when and if I have room ;-)