Cooling Mugs

[Phil47]

Hi Everyone

I have been cooling mugs after printing by gently placing them in water, but I read that if I do that mugs may fail in use, I have heard them ping sometimes when placing in water. The preferred method, apparently, is to use a desk fan, but I am concerned at the time it takes to cool a mug I could cause damage to the image.

Any thoughts on the above, please?

[Justin]

Plenty of threads already discussing this (see above)

Fan cool for me, no image issues.

[GoonerGary]

I don't like placing them in water. I have a series of cheap wire metal kitchen trolleys from Argos and space them apart to cool.

[webtrekker]

Tried cooling them in lukewarm water at first but now just let them air-cool at room temperature. Print is just the same as if water-cooled and I've never had any problems with mugs (money boxes though ........ they crack just looking at them! Given up with those!).

[mr-gobby]

If they go ping I have found theres a hairline crack in them and chuck away.
Mark

[webtrekker]

If they go ping I have found theres a hairline crack in them and chuck away.
Mark

Yes, I had some money boxes that 'pinged' and hairline cracks appeared, always from the ends of the slot to the top edge of the money box. I threw loads away. The one I got from Longforte sometimes 'pinged' but no cracks were visible and they seemed pretty robust, but other problems with them have unfortunately convinced me that money boxes are more trouble than they are worth, so I have stopped buying them.

[ArferMo]

Mine get dunked for two reasons:-

To stop the sublimation process at a controlled time giving finer control of the process and better colour consistency across batches or repeat orders. It is surprising what a difference in ambient temperature across the seasons can make to the effective sublimation time.

That ping caused by the temperature shock exposes a faulty mug saving me a breakage during shipping or better still a failure in a customer's hands and an insurance claim for injury. I may regret this statement but in 9 years I have only had one breakage in transit and that was due to a box of 36 getting run over in a courier's depot.

[GoonerGary]

Good points, but I find that those faulty mugs go ping in the extreme heat of the press anyway. The ambient temperature over the seasons does make a difference to the pressing time, +/- 15 seconds in the press, but I've never noticed the room temperature making a difference to the cooling process.

[UK Printed Mugs]

We water board mugs but only the good quality mugs (Xpres/Listawood) as we find other cheaper ones do go ping in the water so these we air dry. Stopping that sublimation process quickly is important we find especially when dealing with fine writing.

[GoonerGary]

I use those two mugs also, but when I'm doing the black fine text designs, I have presses set up for shorter times. They do darken a little during the cooling process, but everything is sharp and black.