Black line at transfer edge on mugs

[kiddleddee]

I am having trouble with a black line appearing at the outside edge (the edge away from the handle) of my transfer paper when I'm pressing my mugs. Funny thing is that it only happens sometimes and then only on particular designs. But when it happens, it happens on a pretty high percentage of my mugs. For instance, yesterday I pressed 6 different designs. Only 1 of them had the black line problem, but it occurred on 6 out of 12 of that design that I pressed. I guessed that it was caused by the edge of the transfer lifting somehow so I started taping along the entire edge of the transfer. That didn't seem to help. I reasoned that perhaps the edge was falling into some spot in my mug press that wasn't having the same pressure as other places so I tried putting the mugs in the other way around. That didn't help either and besides, it didn't happen with other designs that were the same size and fell into the same place in the mug press.

Any ideas?

[GoonerGary]

Have you checked the design for an outline stroke you might have created in Photoshop?

[webtrekker]

That's my thought too. When in Photoshop I always select an image and see if the selection box extends beyond the coloured parts of the image. If it does, then this is a sure sign of unwanted lines or pixels and can be cleaned up using the eraser, a pure white brush, or a pure white areas fill.

[kiddleddee]

No, none of that is going on. There are no outlines on the image.

[GoonerGary]

Have you got a photo?

Is there any dried ink residue on your printer rollers or accumulated dried ink powder on your mug heat blanket?

[pisquee]

We get this on mugs when the cutter on the printer needs a clean

[GoonerGary]

That's right, dried ink can travel through every part of your production process and finish on your product. I always clean down my trimmer for paper dust and general crap.

[kiddleddee]

I'm using scissors to cut the transfers. I don't clean them regularly for sure. Maybe that's the problem. But I don't understand why it only happens on certain designs and not others; I use the same scissors. I'll break out the alcohol swabs. Thanks guys.