What heat press to use

[Markie]

Hi all.
ive finally started purchasing some equipment for sublimation printing , got the epson 4880 coming so hope that's does the job.

my next question and I'm sure you've all seen this on many times is about heat presses.
I've trolled the web many time but there's just so much out there to choose from. So what model,brands would be good to go for? As I said I've never done this before but I wouldn't want to spend cash to be disappointed in the build quality and performance. It will be light use but I don't like to buy rubbish.
I not sure to buy new or used but depends on price I suppose.
looking for guidance.
many thanks

[pisquee]

You (will) have a 17" roll feed printer, so how big are the products you see your self printing? (I can't remember how many metres is the maximum for your printer) I assume you're wanting a flat bed press for printing hard items, and not a rotary press for pressing rolls of fabric?

[Markie]

You (will) have a 17" roll feed printer, so how big are the products you see your self printing? (I can't remember how many metres is the maximum for your printer) I assume you're wanting a flat bed press for printing hard items, and not a rotary press for pressing rolls of fabric?

Hi pisquee
some of the items will be around 12" but might also go up to say 15" and yes it will be a flat bed for hard items. So many to choose from ranging from very good to possibly ver very bad, with little knowledge on these it's quite a minefield.
Im wanting the best for my buck or should I say pound, preferably from the UK. just because it will make things easier for me, would even consider new but wouldn't mind used items also.

many thanks

[ArtyGamer]

I've been using one of those generic Chinese-made heat presses for the past two years and it's actually been surprisingly good. I only bought it because I didn't expect to be doing this for very long, and genuinely had no idea what I was doing when I started out so it was all a bit of a gamble. Truth be told, I bought a Silhouette Cameo to make some 'do not disturb' signs and some fridge magnets for a group of twenty gamers who were coming to stay at ours for four days for a BBQ. When I ordered it, there was an option to add some garment vinyl and I thought "that could be a laugh", made my newly-born daughter a Cat In The Hat onesie which took ages to produce with a regular iron... and bought the cheap press from eBay the next day.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Recently though, when I moved into dye sub I realised that I needed to go beyond the 15" platen of the cheap press and I also experienced problems with it where it would just jump open and have to be attacked with spanners to tighten the mechanism. Not good. The number of mousemats and t-shirts I've wasted because a perfectly tight press suddenly burst open again is insane. My problem is space, however, because all my printers are in my office but my heat presses are in a different room and the work surface is only 70cm deep. I wanted the Geo Knight DK20 but the footprint was too deep, and after weeks of reading various reviews I opted for the Adkins Auto Clam Senior 40 x 50cm. Arrives on Friday, so I'm hoping it'll do the job well. Looks very well built, and will allow me to do the full A3+ print.

[RogerC]

Stahls Maxx are a good press.....and the element is guaranteed for life. Adkins are also very good........ebay is your friend for these as they pop up from time to time. I got mine off there almost brand new for less than half of the retail price.

[pisquee]

Personally, I would always recommend PressMech, for reasons I've said many times on here, if you want to do a search.

[mfatty500]

I use this unit for small stuff, when doing 1-2 thing that fit on the platen. Knight DK-8