Big developments in shirt pressing
So the Clean Show was over more than five
weeks ago and maybe you’ve grown tired of reading about
the number of booths, the attendance figures and about all the
things to do in central Florida.
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Fimas continues to improve its shirt
pressing equipment. A few years ago, I complained to
manufacturers in general that I was not particularly fond of
cuffs that were not rounded when the shirt was completely
pressed. I like the cuffs on my shirt to be starched, hard and
rounded.
Well, the feature that was changed on the
greatest number of shirt units is rounded cuff clamps. Fimas
has a terrific design. The cuff is perfectly round and I love
it! The Fimas unit has a supplemental clamp for short sleeve
shirts that, because of its rounded design, leaves no pinch
marks, dry areas or folds.
Ajax changed the shape of the steam chest
on its body press in order to minimize pressing deficiencies in
the area of the shirt where the sleeve and the body of the
shirt join.
Also, the sleeve holder on their rotary
press has been extended to accommodate a wider range of sleeve
lengths.
If you use an Ajax or a competitive brand
rotary unit that pinches the sleeve in order to hold it in
place, you should be aware of how important this seemingly
minor tweak is. The longer the sleeve, the lower the cuff must
be. That is, closer to the waist of the shirt. This is to
prevent “wave” type wrinkles, or ripples on the top
of the sleeves.
With the older, shorter clamps, it
wasn’t possible to clip them as low as you can now
because the clamp was not long enough.
I was prepared for something completely
different from Unipress. They leaked the news to various
sources that they were about to introduce something completely
different.
Still, I wasn’t prepared for what
they have dubbed “Lightning NT 1”.
What’s new about it? What
isn’t new is much easier to answer. This is sort of a
Sankosha knock off, but it presses shirts much faster with
simply stunning quality and it doesn’t leave any areas of
the shirt unpressed.
I like the subtle step savers on this
machine that make the machine as fast as, uh, something really
fast.
For example, you can attach either sleeve
to the cuff clamps first, and when you set up the last
sleeve/cuff, the vacuum automatically starts up.
A little nuance like this helps to set
the pace for an employee, rapidly advancing the presser from
one step to the next.
The machine lacks the extra clamps and
pinchers that some newer machines have, like clamps to pull the
backs and sides. This saves time and the buck seems to dress
itself.
I have complained about these types of
machines in the past because there are too many steps to
prepare the shirt for pressing. Not so with the Lightning NT. I
like pressing on this unit. It was the only completely new
shirt unit at the show.
Hi-Steam has added an excellent round
cuff clamp on their durable form finisher shirt unit while
adding more heat and more air-flow for faster drying. The
Mitsubishi/Miyata entry in the Sankosha-like shirt unit market
does an excellent job with their host of improvements including
an enhanced heat exchanger.
I really like what they’ve done
with the short sleeve device. This unit is easy to operate
quickly and does an impressive job.
Forenta has a completely new Magna shirt
press along with a completely redesigned collar and cuff press.
The new triple head still has Forenta’s signature stacked
design. I love its compact size.
Furthermore, Forenta claims that you can
set up a double buck unit with only this collar and cuff press
rather than two of another more conventional type. This is
because of the additional pressure caused by the stacked design
coupled with the fact that the operator brings down the head
immediately after laying down the collar.
This begins the drying process sooner,
prevents the collar from moving while the cuffs are placed into
position and overall cuts several seconds off the dressing
process.
The new body press does a great job and
has a very cool LCD control panel that, among others functions,
allows the presser to easily add time to the pressing cycle
with a simple touch of a button, five seconds at a time. This
is a big time saver. Rather than allowing a cycle to finish and
repressing the still-wet shirt, just lengthen the time a few
seconds on the Forenta Magna!
Hoffman tweaked their rotary body press
by making the cuff clamps more ergonomic.
Sankosha has made two significant changes
to their popular single buck shirt unit. The covers are now
very easy to change rather than very tedious and they have
modified the side expanders.
Itsumi has boosted its heat exchangers
for faster, more efficient drying and has tinkered with various
components to make them more practical and service friendly.
Trevil has completely revamped their
shirt units. The new models boast a host of improvements
— better pads and covers, a three-horsepower blower
motor, a hotter placket press to assure a completely dry front
placket and a larger heating element for quicker drying of the
entire shirt.
The shirt units feature a
“pause” function with which one can temporarily
stop the cycle timer so that the presser can add more spray
starch if desired, assuring a top quality finish.
And, get this: The vacuum on the collar
and cuff press turns on automatically by way of an electric eye
that sees an operator laying a shirt on the press. I love these
little time-savers.
FujiStar has made their Rotary Quad
Collar and Cuff press second to none by inbreeding a design
feature that automatically stretches the wrinkles out of a
collar while pressing it — an overdue enhancement. Also,
the cuff clamps on the sleeve press have been improved and the
steam chests on the body press have been modified.
I hope that I covered every manufacturer.
If you think that you may have missed a great show, you think
correctly. It is my pleasure however, to present all these
niceties to you. And I have more news from Clean 2005 to share
Next month, I will show you the new
products related to shirts that were introduced in Florida.
“If you do what you've always done,
you'll get what you always got.”
