Printing on coasters

Hi. Can somebody please help me figure out how to set up for printing on coasters? I am printing on a C&P Pilot Press and have pre-cut 3.5” round coasters and the size of my art block is 3.25 in diameter. How would I position the coaster in grippers?
Thanks a lot to anybody who can help me!

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Hello, Just wondering where you purchased your coasters from. I am also interested in printing coasters on my Pilot but need to find them first.

I would be very careful with grippers, keep them away from your “art block”.
Picking shouldn’t be a problem but:
dab of reducer.
careful positioning of pins & tongues.
careful positioning of gripper fingers.
string between the grippers/fingers
should cure.

Did you mean “pins” rather than “grippers”?
Pins are set in the tympan to hold the paper. Grippers are the long, narrow, flat, steel things connected to a privoting bar on the lower part of the platen that can help hold the paper in place as the press opens, if used.
I would set 2 pins for round coasters at about 10:30 and 1:30. I would angle them so they gave maximum bearing.
It takes a bit of fiddling with.

Dick - what does string between the grippers do? and are you placing pins on the platen? : ).

Applies to C&Ps and similar, but not to your Heidelberg.
Yes, pins in the platen tympan to guide the coasters to proper registration. Use 2 pins with round or oval shapes 3 pins, 1 left and 2 bottom minimum for all else.
The string between the grippers helps strip the paper off the form as the press opens if needed. Miss-positioned grippers caused a lot of damage for novices in the early days. Many of us kept our grippers set wide and used string to avoid accidentally smashing a form with the gripper(s). You had to be careful with string also for the same reason.

Here’s what I did (http://flickr.com/photos/adamrice/337988510/in/set-72157594447356834/). It was my very first job, don’t know if it’s the “right” way do it, but it worked for my short run of 50+. You can’t really see it, but after I had the gauge pins in place I quickly outlined the coaster so I could put it in the same place every time. (You’ll also note that this was before I had any sort of experience, and the pins are backwards!) As you can see, I don’t use the grippers…my press came with them taken off, and I’ve honestly never figure out how to use them…

Perfect Bravo. Yes, drawing the shape on the tympen is a good idea. Maybe for a long run adding a 3rd pin/guide on the left could help. Thank you for the photos. I looked at the whole set. Word of caution: Your hand appeared to be deep in the press for how late in the cycle it was. Throw the impression lever and wait a cycle if you want to adjust the paper.

I;ve printed on precut coasters on my pilot, and I found that yes, tracing the coaster and printing on the tympan for registration helped. I actually taped a thin reglet down on 2 sides and the bottom of the coaster outline instead of using gauge pins, and the coasters just slid in and out quite easily. I checked the registration every 20 coasters or so and it was fine.

imariosf: I got my coasters form American Coaster Company americancoaster.com. I was able to get free samples and everything. they were very accommodating.

Hi imariosf, sorry i never responded to your post, i really hope you found an answer! :) I bought my coasters at American Coaster Company, americancoaster.com. You have to buy a large quantity (about 500) but they’re really cheap and fun to work with!

Good luck on the free sample thing with American coaster — they send me 1 of each size and it took several times asking to get that…

The real question is how to get a reliable second-color register.