what is up everybody Matt with Mikey Designs here today we're going to do a
little bit of a review of the ran our elite six six press we have one in our
shop we're gonna give you a little bit of a rundown a review of it and what we
think stick around
welcome back everybody welcome to our review of the ran our elite six six
press our press is probably about fifteen years old maybe even 16 years
old you'll notice that it's the older blue that they used to use the new ones
do come with the more modern blue that they're using kind of like our dryer
over here this is our six six press six color six station and ours actually came
with wooden pallets the MDF Formica pallets and if you guys may know with
wooden pallets they do tend the warp I think it's time for us just to
completely upgrade to the all open Impala's we do have a aluminum pallets
that burnt one of them up and the quality of this this pallet is is really
good and the build of this presses is pretty it's pretty rock-solid this thing
is a tank it's looks like 2x4 all steel construction you can see the the
heavy-duty bearing in the center and this press was fairly simple to set up
the heads our cast aluminum or I believe they call
extrude aluminum but it is pretty heavy-duty and so this press does come
with it comes with a center spring and you're able to adjust it with this nut
right here so that way if a screen weighs more than another screen you can
adjust the the tension on the spring very easy to adjust that tension as you
can see it's got the XY micro registration so you've got your two
registration points here and this will tilt the screen this way and this
particular registration will pull it that way and if you just the both of
them at the same time it will just pull the whole screen back here is your X
micro registration that will make your screen go back and forth horizontally
left and right I might be getting the terminology wrong X Y but I know the
term terminology is correct but I forget which is which and here are your knobs
your clampdown knob so whenever you are registering up a job you can use your
XYZ registration and then lock it down one thing I will say about this press
when you are registering multiple color jobs is hardly ever use these I'll line
up my registration marks clamp everything down and it may just be a
wear issue with the bars that the little clamp bars here one of the things that
tends to do is it tends to shift this way just a little bit like I said it
could just be the wear of the bars but I hardly ever use these knobs I just leave
them lock down if I need to shift my screen this
access was an expert of course at why I forget but I'll use this the tilt the
screen and get my registration marks correct
with these clamp down I would recommend keeping tension on these when I do go to
register a multiple color job I'll clamp everything down and I'll let the screen
up and I'll shake it like this just a little bit because it will tend the ship
just a little bit so these lock down knobs like I said I
hardly ever touch them I'll put a little more tension on whichever side I need
the shift to screen to so I tend to rest your things that way the colors are just
a hair higher than my base print or whatever print I'm using to register the
job off of one of the things I will say about this press I don't know if it's I
haven't worked with other presses so it may just be this one particular might be
all of them but when you do have a multiple color
job register is to be careful about whipping your screens around too hard
just kind of take your time with it because you can bump it out of
registration just slightly and I've heard from other screen printers that
have different presses they have the same issue if you bump one of these
screens you'll definitely knock it out a registration our press is a little older
it does have the the knobs to clamp your screen down as you can see here
and I'll say one of the drawbacks you gotta be real careful to this particular
press is if you clamp it down too much you'll end up bending these little bars
under here let me find one that's a little cleaner there we go
it's time to clean our press but you can see where it's starting to I have over
clamped it a few times and it's kind of beveled just a little bit one of the
other things about our press in particular because it is older is that
these little barrel nuts are starting to wear a little bit of a groove inside the
plant bar and so it's time for us to replace it I'm not sure if you're
supposed to put any Lube or anything down there to keep that from happening
but like I said it is an older press it's seen quite a bit of use the
registration uses these roller bearings and a key you also do have the option to
tilt the head either up or down so that way you can level out your your screen
with your pallet and that's use with this this bar or lever they can actually
pull out and adjust it so if you need to crank it down a little bit you can go
forward if you get a little too far for it you cannot pull it out and then
tighten it even further the off-contact is adjusted by this screw here the newer
models have a plastic washer here it's probably not plastic I forget what the
proper term is but on our particular press it is this take a letter wingnut
style which works just fine for us and as you can see here we have every single
one of the heads down so anyone complain to that this isn't
all heads down press and it maybe not be designed for all heads down but you can
see that we have every single one of them down and I imagine with a little
bit of an adjustment to your fresh you could use this as an all heads down
press and looking at the overall construction of this press it is very
heavy-duty I have been able to sit on it in order to level out your Palace you do
have this support arm that uses I believe this 9/16 wrench and you just
undo the little lock nut here put your level on your arm with the pallet off
and then just adjust it until everything is all level one of the things I would
like to see which they kind of would have included not a deal-breaker though
is measurements along the sights that way you know how far your palate is so
in order to get your palates all the same length or the the same distance
from the center of the press out you do have to use a ruler not a deal-breaker
but you make it work you can see the base looks like it's about 2 by 2 steel
construction and it does have a weight to level the base it has these feet that
you can use a wrench to level everything out man you have to excuse me arm it's
probably time to clean ours and stop using spray tech the size of this thing
is low over 8 feet so it's pretty big
it's really good size press this press does have a indexer that is this little
plunger right here and you can adjust the tension of it with that nut we we
haven't fooled with it since we got the press use setup the way it is and so
you see it just locks in I would say one of the drawbacks but I match this is
probably just a wearable part is our press does have a little bed let me see
if I can get that focus but you can see where it's kind of starting to wear a
little bit of a groove into these brackets that lock your pallets in the
station not a big deal we'll just have to order some more the pallets lock on
using this bracket that has two knobs and then it has two aside knots that way
you can kind of get your pallet nice and center in the arm and it's pretty easy
to remove the pallets just lace knees up
it slides right off you'll notice that all their pallets have a bolt that is
used to allow it to slide on the arm when you're placing it into position I
would say one of the only drawbacks about this particular bracket style is
if you do over clamp it it will have a tendency to bend and I have over
tightened some of them but that's just user error aside from that really like
how the clamping system of this particular bracket works as far as
maintenance goes you do need to use just a little bit of lithium grease
occasionally on these clamp down knobs and the threads as well for the micro
registration and then the other
maintenance point of this press you have a grease fitting here it's that
way you can grease your bearing you have one here at the top and then there's
also one down here at the bottom you can see and I think that just about covers
it guys this has been a really great press for us we got to use for about two
grand years ago initially was going to go with summer rianesd products and it
kind of turned me on to the rest of radars equipment everything's really
well made made in the US and and we're very happy with our perches we're glad
that we got this for the price that we did use well guys I think that's just
about it I hope I covered everything thoroughly
if I miss something leave a comment below let me know what questions you
have we'll get back to you and as always be sure to check our description box for
links to these products if you're in the market for a manual press hopefully this
will help some of you guys out there make your decision because there's a lot
of choices out there and I think Reynard is a pretty solid choice it has been for
us so until next time guys we'll see you you