Tippmann Clicker

[jeff1040]

has any body used the tippmann clicker ?how would you rate it?

[Sharpshooter]

A more important question is "What do you intend to do with it?"

If you plan to go into business, I don't think the Tippmann will be the way to go. To start with, you set the die on your leather and feed them into the opening in the machine; VERY slow. Real Clicker presses have the head getting out of your way so you set the die on the leather and move the head over the top to click.

The Tippmann is air operated, actually it's an air spring under the bottom which inflates to press up against the stationary top, you need a compressor with good capacity to keep up with the machine.

Clicker presses have a pressure limit, in the case of the Tippmann machines you're looking at 7 or 15 tons.

Dies are essentially designed with an eye toward the pressure of the press, a 7 ton press is really a belch in a wind storm meaning you'll be limited to some very small dies. Even the 15 ton unit is marginal compared to commercial machines. The few times I have worked with a Tippmann I noticed how you seem to sit and wait for the pressure to push the die through the leather, for a few seconds. That doesn't sound like much time until you think about clicking 200 pieces, (that's only 50 four piece sheaths), you are waiting for 400 seconds, that's almost 7 minutes of waiting for the press to do it's job.

My clicker press is a 40 ton unit, I hit the buttons and the head makes the cut in the blink of an eye.

Now lets talk about price.... the 7 ton unit is $1500, the 15 ton $3000. Tippmanns ad lies about not needing electricity unless they plan on you running the machine with a bicycle pump so add in a decent compressor.

You can buy a used clicker press on E-Bay for around $2000 add a couple hundred for a phase converter since most of the commercial presses run on three phase power.

When I started in the business, I decided to do it right or not at all. A first class stitcher and clicker press were the core elements and doing it right is something I've never regretted.