Sporty-Tex Should we give it a go?

Keep it!

If you need a second press, the cost of it shouldn't be as critical as you are describing. Are you sure need is the correct word? Either way best wishes.

I do not like the guy who sold it to me, so I decide to buy all M&R!
I print thousands of shirts on both Printex's every week. I have Brian for tech support, he is the only one knows the presses inside and out and will be 100% honest.

Which reminds me of one of my Elexon stories. They dropped a ginormous machine with wing pallets and all the gadgets in a big shop in LA which was already running 15 autos 2 shifts. Literally if you blinked it would shut down and refuse to re-start. Even caught on fire once. They kept flying in techs and parts sometimes twice a week. Eventually it was hauled away to some poor sap as the delays in production were causing them to get further behind. Mind you this going to revolutionize the industry. Was it free? Perhaps; unless you factor in all the downtime.
Imagine if you were a much smaller shop that could far less afford all that?

Classy Reply!

So you have read about this man's reputation 1,000 times...hummmm I guess nothing anyone says here is going to make a difference than. You put your company and reputation at risk. RWB got you hook line and sinker, just like he did to Jeff when everyone was telling him to stay clear. There are so many reasons why this is a bad idea, but sometimes people have to learn the hard way. All I can say is if business is good and you want to keep it going, you can NOT afford to go with an unproven press and mfg. Have you talked to other mfgs or only Mr. Barnes at this point.

Sorry Rich, comprehensive coverage here also, what I meant is a "no-questions" exit clause he would need written into the contract as an out at any time.

Sorry for the side, can someone please give me the history overview of Elexon? I have heard many small one line comments, but couldn't find much on google, even looked images, with zip. Any of them running anywhere, never seen or heard, it's like a ghost brand? Am curious because it had some good people behind it apparently, and local in the US to make it good, yet it sounds like a catastrophic disaster. How and why, and what was learned in hindsight?

If you are in the middle of a big 7 color run and the Sporty-Tex goes down how will you finish it, how long to get support, how long for parts, are you mechanically inclined enough to fix the press yourself?

There were some good industry veterans with them back in the day, but I don't know the whole story either. I've heard bits and pieces but not enough to put it all together. I think they tried to do some things as far as features that might have been too far out of reach at the time? Maybe that bit them to a degree and then some good employees got ran off because of others and I'm sure a few guys got plucked by other upstarts, and then the one's that went off on their own. I guess it was multiple things that happened all at once that they couldn't recover from.

What happen if Robert bails on the project and there is zero support.

No offense but don't you think a beta machine would go in a much larger shop where they could run thousands of prints a day on it, day in day out. A mfg would want production data as quickly as possiable. Some shops put 30k on a press a week why would you want to test a machine in a shop doing that in a quarter. Sounds a little fishy to me?

There may be few on here telling the story but there are many more. There are forums he has killed and other that go to great lengths to keep him out.

Like Graphic said if your production requires a larger press the cost should not be a factor.

All Assets/ Rights Owned Today or Thrown in the Trash(one or the other)
Started 1994/95 By Former M&R Partner/Founder Alex S.
Rick Fuqua Partner? Elexon
RWB got his screenprint industry start installing/ selling machine
Oval Concept w/individual printheads w/ Lots of digital Features
"The Founders of Better Technology"
Nice Concept/ **** Poor Execution / Worked like Schitt in the real world. Lots of Electrical Interferance. It works,It doesnt work yada,yada yada! Ran Like A Train! Maintanance Nightmare. Company bled money for lots of reasons and at this point not worth talking about. Alex S. still to this day, thinks it was the "best" press ever designed/built.Did they learn from it ? RWB learned that there is a sucker just around the block! The others? Some Did, Some Are Still Dillusional.Ask Any Former Owner!
IMHO- Machine was a CLUSTER*****.
winston

Let's analyse the market first, then analyse the who, what, where :rolleyes:

First, the Blue Team has had the luxury of what, almost 90% of the market for years :confused:

Second, If China can offer only an average quality machine with features not available on Big Blue and at a fraction of the price (huge benefits to the screen printing community), then as long as China offers proper support (which they absolutely have proved at the Beta site in Miami) there will always be buyers for China presses :cool:

Third, if China offers "no credit check" direct financing it really becomes a game of how quickly can China sign everyone up :eek:

Finally, now that the Big Blue Lawsuit is over and everyone has had their day in court, we as an industry should be ready for some change in the status quo :p

Should have read,
All Assets/Rights Owned Today By M&R or Thrown in the trash (one or the other)

I think that you’re operating under a great illusion that it’s worth the risk to invest 50% to 60% of the cost of a qualified new press from a reputable manufacturer, on an unproven piece of gear from an unknown and untested manufacturer. You are going into this deal with the full knowledge that the presses aren’t right and that your sole US based support provider is going to be Robert. Believe me if there’s any major ongoing issues with the equipment there’s no way that you will be able to seek recompense directly from the Chinese based manufacture, that just isn’t going to happen.

I realize that RWB is a polarizing presence in the industry and that he draws a lot of negative attention but the fact is that there are people out there who purchased machines from him over the past couple of years that either are not getting the service and support that was guaranteed to them, who received equipment that does not meet the specifications of what they were sold, and in some cases never received the equipment that they bought and paid for. The problem that these people face is that neither the manufacturer or their selling agent has any legitimate business entity with any assets on US soil that they can pursue for damages or to enforce the fulfillment their contracts.

I’m also thinking back to the timing of when the first two Beta China Sporty’s were installed in Miami and I think that we’re coming up on the date that payment is due for these machines. It would be interesting to know if the great deal that you are being offered is for a brand new press out of China, or one of these original machines that has all of the “upgrades” installed on it. Bottom line, buying one of these China Sporty presses is a fairly high risk investment, and only you can balance the risk vs. reward for your business in making this purchase decision.

The biggest question the reader here should be asking is, what are the behind the scenes motivations of these posters?

Who is 244 and why does he care so much?
Who is Pwalsh and why does he care so much?
Who is GraphicDisorder and why does he care so much?
Who is PushingInk and why does he care so much?
Who is californiadreamin and why does he care so much?
Who is inkman996 and why does he care so much?
Who is jmd and why does he care so much?

Then, we have all seen the numerous aliases that are here just to bash like "The Bumper" who are these people and what are their behind the scenes motives?

Are you saying the motion to dismiss was not granted in this case :confused:

Yep Peter, this machines look identical :p LOL

Note: if you are going to make misleading statements at least base them on a small shred of truth (you make the rest of us machine pimps look bad) :eek:

Attention Readers - all the China Sporty presses were all 12 color 14 station all the China Sporty-Tex presses are currently 8 color 10 station and the starter of this thread is asking about getting a 10 color 12 station China Sporty-Tex

Now you as a reader here need to ask yourself how deep does this industry rabbit hole really go?

Two points/questions:

1. Is it just me or do others think its strange the people who are vocal on these matters all keep their screen name and never hide behind aliases. To me this says a lot. Where as the one in question changes his daily sometimes several times a day. Red flag in my book.

2. How in gods name are the discussions going on here at Digitsmith or any law suits holding back the industry in any way.

You are pretty sure? I don't bother posting much anymore because most of what I read is the same old dribble, but if you are only pretty sure, it sounds to me like you need to have more financial facts about your business in order to make an informed decision.

I only know what you say, but if you are working so many hours, an unproven machine that could break down or have problems would be a nightmare. It's definitely a risky move if you ask me. Personally I wouldn't risk my business on any beta macine unless I could absolutely live without the extra needed floor space and production capacity. I would want to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

Send It As A Gift To The Chinese! With My Regards!
That will set them back 25 years!

Start with you are Robert Barnes...

They earned it, deserve it, and do exactly as they say. Something you could learn a lot from. With as obsessed as you are about M&R and others you would think you'd take better notes on how to offer that type of service support.

Who sets out to be average? Average machine, what? LOL. So by your own admission, average machine. Got ya. Backed by you right? Using your own track record with your Playtex support, you are going to offer POOR service and support to a average machine. This already sounds bad...... If anyone decides to sign up for that, no sympathy from me. The man is telling you it's a mess before it even ships. Imagine the car commercials if they were based on some bs like you push. I can hear the commercials already, "come on down folks and buy a average car that we will have to service and support but we are often not here to do that since we constantly have to play on the internet to find suckers to buy these things."

People will all line up and "buy" them and never pay the bill. Sounds good. Maybe put them out front and offer rides on it for $1 a rotation. 2 rotations if it will run that long.

We sent them Robert Barnes, that will set them back for LIFE!!

First, let's break it down into smaller pieces so we can attempt to swallow this Blue Stench :cool:

First, the gear is not so "unproven" (insert Miami info here)
Second, the mfg is not untested in the least, here is a pic of just one of their facilities

That is a great story Peter is telling, however there are two critical pieces of this puzzle that are conveniently missing:

1- the MFG involved in Peter's story is Printex and just like you are witnessing here on DigitSmith, what role has the Blue Crew played in undermining Printex and it's abilities to regain traction in the USA market

2- China has watched very carefully the mistakes that Printex made and will not follow the Printex path

Laughable (see earlier post on model sizes) the SPIN is making me dizzier

Once again, as a reader ask yourself why are these dozen or so posters so interested in undermining new competition into the marketplace?

^^^ FOLLOW THE MONEY ^^^

Robert: I'm not behind the scenes, and my identity is no secret. I am a 26 year veteran of the screen printing industry that has worked with just two companies during that time. TAS a manufacturer of automatic screen-printing presses and currently with the SourceOne Distribution division of the Nazdar Company. I gladly offer my knowledge and experience to people in this industry to help them make informed equipment buying decisions.

That’s my story and it’s one that I’m proud to tell it.

Oh man lmao....

Interestingly there is nothing behind the scenes as motivation. Unlike you we are all not motivated by ripping off someone or financial gain on this. It's about write and wrong. You have done many people wrong and you can't deny it.

Runs one of the most successful businesses in the screen printing industry. A person that is a industry professional and cares about people in general EVEN when they aren't buying his products.

A person who reached out to you to try to help you get your metal issues under control, even though your true colors were apparent very early on (before even speaking with you). I don't like to see people buy machines and not get them, or not get what was advertised. You continue to rip people off in those respects. Fact.

He's your own customer, imagine that. You have taken payment for 3 machines of his around a year ago and he still only has 2. Reader should know that.

Industry professional that cares about people in general and doesn't want to see people get ripped off MORE by you.

Another one of your own customers. You delivered a press with surprise shipping costs, not as pictured in adverts, does not print the print area as advertised, and a host of other issues that are not only dangerous but indicate sloppy manufacturing and backed up with even worse support.

JMD has been watching you close for years, he also doesn't like to see people ripped off.

You have more aliases than anyone, often creating one or more a day, is the interesting part. So maybe you should watch where you throw stones from that glass house in that respect.

More stinky Blue Speech

These user names somehow (albeit magically) keep getting banned by DigitSmith, almost like when RWB gets thrown out of trade shows for eating a $5 dollar hotdog <--- Red flag in my book did you say?

you and the other Blue Crew are making every effort to trash talk every brand that RWB is associated with, for god's sake Alan802 is trash talking the Mustang (the newer version of his RPM Revolution) it is so obvious to the readers here what is going on behind the scenes, do you not look in the mirror when you shave?

Just out of curiosity does anyone have photos, will pass on the machine, has a reputation proceeding itself.....:eek:

squeegee, you make some great points, and the Blue Crew use to say the same thing to the Progressive Falcon buyers for almost a decade :rolleyes:

Thousands and Thousands of operators worldwide running Progressive Falcon machine literally every second of every day someone is loading a t-shirt on a Falcon :p

Brandt may be up for it, built in the USA, Is it blue?:D

You were thrown out because of your actions, it just happened to be while you were eating a hot dog, but it was because of your filming and such previous to that. The industry doesn't want you, that was a good indication when you are removed from a industry TRADE show that they don't want you in the TRADE. I go to trade shows that dwarf those types of shows, and I have never seen ANYONE thrown out. Of course that industry doesn't have people acting like you.

Binkspot is another one of your customers interestingly. He runs (well works on), a Playtex a lot. Didn't his flash about burn to the ground the other day. Go Playtex. RWB endorsed it. What does that say about your knowledge of printing equipment?

Really? Do you fill your pockets with "unsuspecting printers money" :confused:

Why is it that purchase prices for identical sku numbers fluctuate so much from buyer to buyer, could the argument be made that "unsuspecting printers" that don't get quotes from other MFGs are paying too much :rolleyes:

BTW, did you file your Federal Appeal yet in IL or are you coming to SC (hear the climate down in the south for Yankees can be tough to get use to)

Unpaid spokesman, got it :eek:

What are the details of it? Is it that bad that you would not want to sell it Rich?

That's an excellent story, as a man of means like yourself, what are you willing to do to help Printex penetrate the USA market so that it can regain some sales and have the financial wherewithal to right its ship with these USA customers :confused:

Show us that you are the industry guy you claim to be, open the doors at NaZdar and take Printex under your wing and help :p

Unpaid spokespeople work awfully hard for no money :rolleyes:

Are you saying that people should not do business with Robert Barnes :confused: