Should I buy a 6 head or an 8 head machine?

rjm101

Hi Guys,

I'm about to purchase a machine. I have one operator that will be running it. Polos, Hats, and 3D foam hats.

Should I buy a 6 head or 8 head? Disregard price. This is mainly a production question for me.

Can 1 operator comfortably keep up with an 8 head?

Any other reasoning on this would be appreciated.


Thanks!
RJM

DeepWoods

If space and price aren't an issue, buy the 8 head every time. That's assuming you have the volume to keep it running 40 hours + a week. If your orders tend to be multiple smaller runs or you don't think you can keep the 8 head running constantly, then I'd opt for the 6 head instead. One good operator can easily keep up with either the 8 or 6 head unless the designs are small and sew out fast. Our 8 head averaged almost an extra case of caps per day over the 6 head so that's an extra 3-5 cases per week if you do mostly caps like we do.

Rob

MMMEMB

which brand are you looking, 8 head will be better, but 2 machine ea 4 head will be much better, when running same logo on 2 4 head and if thread breaks one 4 head stops. call me 714-550-9200 I will help you, we have 125 heads in our shop

minimalist

I ran one contract for 1200 hats with a barudan 6 head. Stitch count was 3K (just lettering) and they were standard structured ball caps. I would pull the frames off the machine and take the hats off the frame while the operator loaded the frames and started the machine. She then would put the hats on the frames while the machine was running. The timing was perfect. We are now running bag tops at 51K stitches 6 at a time. Takes 1.25 hours to sew out.

What I'm getting at here is that if you are running large stitch count items the more heads the better since there is more time spent on the machine. Small stitch counts are better left for 6 heads as the time to load hoops, clamps, or cap frames might not be so efficient with a large head.

In an ideal world I'd like to have a 12 head stretch machine with 15 needles or two 6 head stretch machines just to do the heavy stitch count items. Then I would want either 2 4 head or 6 head machines with 11 or less needles to do either caps or flats with small stitch counts.

One other thing to consider. If you are doing any items that hang below the table where it needs to be removed I strongly suggest that you try it out before you buy a machine. My 6 head barudan machines don't have enough clearance between the cylinder arm and the lower beam to run this particular item. I have to run them on my single head barudan which takes forever to get those items done. I'd buy the new happy machine tomorrow if I had the funds since there is more room to run that item on it.

You need to also look at the sewing field on most of your stuff to determine if you need a stretch or standard field. At this point I'd lean toward the happy with barudan being 2nd. I know barudan raised the sewing heads on their new machine but the sales guy never got back to me with the difference in measurement.

Small circular cylinder arms also will help with difficult projects that don't have much horizontal travel space. Lots of machines have square cylinder arms. My ZSK ran out of room at 3" of horizontal travel whereas the barudan round cylinder arm ran the design with no issues on a item we do regularly.