Enamel mug frustrations!!!

[AmySquirrels]

Hi All,

I posted with this same issue a few months back and even after trying everyone’s suggestions, I eventually put enamel mugs to the side for a while and went on with ceramics. However I have come to a point now where I need to print enamel mugs and I have tried pretty much EVERYTHING with little success.

The problem I have is that the mugs are coming out of the oven with faded colours, and the images and fonts never being sharp, the main issue is that black font/images NEVER comes out actually being black, it is always some variation of dark grey with a very slight blur to it.

I have a belling counter top convection oven in my studio, which is fitted with a thermocouple so I have a really precise reading of the temperature inside and I have tried many many many different time and temp combinations with similar results every time. I have even tried them in my home fan oven for 20 minutes at 160 degrees c as a lot of other people on here seemed to have success with that one, and still they are coming out faded and never crisp.

They are the 10oz enamel camping mugs from listawood, and I’m starting to think that after so many failed mugs (I’ve never actually had one turn out ok yet) that could it be a problem with the actual batch? Is it possible that there’s something wrong with the coating? Or could it be that this certain mug isn’t suited to oven sublimation?
I know that it’s not my printer because I’ve printed 20 ceramic mugs over the last day or two that all came out perfectly.

If anyone at all has any insights or could help me I can’t tell you how grateful I’d be!

thanks

[BadZebedee]

Which wraps are you using? Could it be that they aren't tight enough or snagging on the top lip of the mug?

I haven't tried enamel mugs yet but I've got a sample from Listawood and am not sure how I would wrap it properly.

[AmySquirrels]

I’m using the red wraps for them which fit pretty snugly, and are the correct size for them.

I don’t know whether it’s worth contacting Listawood to see if they have had any complaints from anyone else about enamel mugs. I’m just at a loss of what to try next really!

[Andrew]

I would imagine the camping mugs need a lot less time than ceramic version in the oven. The get up to temp far quicker. Might be the case they are over cooking. Would even goes as far as halving the time.

[anniecov]

We do our enamel mugs in a normal mug press (the lip stick out at the top). After wasting many mugs in the beginning, I found they needed to be done a lot hotter than ceramic mugs. We do them for 260 seconds at 200°C.