Are you ready for another newcomer?

[purpledragon]

Welcome aboard
heres my advice
buy cheap buy twice as they say , its no good getting a cheap mug press then losing ££££'s in misprints.
Colour profiles are very important read up on them and make sure you are using the right one for your set up.
as for ink i dont think you can go far wrong with artanium inks
and remember if its not going right theres normally an answer on this forum just ask
Brett

[JSR]

If I am going to be printing mostly mugs would you recommend a 4 colour printer? Which model should I go for?
I know nothing about ICC profiles, do I need to learn?
Should I start with a 'Budget' mug press to see if Mug Sublimating is for me or is this false economy?
Should I be buying my Sublimation Ink from Revolution Transfers, as they're the best prices I have found. Anyone using them?

Any more tips or 'I wish I had known that from the start' knowlege would be most appreciated.

Hi Phil

When I started out, I was fortunate enough to already have a suitable Epson printer (the 1290S).

To try the waters, I got myself a couple of sublimation cartridges (not cheap but not as expensive as a full CISS), a box of mugs, and a couple of 80mm wraps from Revolution Transfers. The wraps work in any domestic oven, so all I needed to do was to put in the cartridges, print an image, stick it to the mug, put the mug in the wrap and the wrap in the oven. Twenty minutes later I had my first mug.

There weren't any forums around like this in those days so I made tons of mistakes in that first month, but it proved to be a good learning curve.

The first essential you need is a printer with the sublimation ink. You can hold off on the press for a while by getting a couple of wraps and using your oven. If you decide it's for you, then you can splash out on a mug press (or a mug oven with more wraps). If you decide it's not for you, what have you lost? The price of a couple of wraps, and you can reuse the printer with OEM inks.

On the subject of inks, it's worth noting that Sawgrass hold the patent for dye-sublimation ink on desktop printers. Sawgrass ink is called Artanium, Rotech, or Sublijet. Companies that sell Sawgrass ink are legally-licensed to do so, but it means that the price is pretty much always going to be the same.

Companies can sell dye-sublimation ink of other (non-Sawgrass) inks, but only for use in large format printers. I'm fairly sure that Revolution can't legally sell you their Lyson dye-sublimation ink for use in a small-format (A4 or A3) desktop printer. If you have a large-format printer (over 17", I think) then you're okay.

JSR

[Flash]

Hi Brett & JSR,
Thank you for your very kind tips and advice. I will take it all on board.
Look forward to future chats!

Regards
Phil