Why Dunk?

[TonyM]

Hi all,

Still fairly new and experimenting.
Happy to say getting more successes than failures....AT LAST!!.

What I dont really understand on the Mug side of it all, is why we dunk them in water?

I have been dunking them as it seems the standard.
But I tried not dunking and I actually felt it was a bit better?
Like I had given it a bit more time.

Then I tried leaving a while then dunking and that seemed just as good.

What is the dunking thing all about?

Cheers

Tony

[Justin]

Dunking is supposed to halt the sublimation process quicker. If the process continues the image can become blurred. Recently members have discussed this and some are cooling with a fan but many are finding that dunking/cooling isn't necessary. If your results back this up then all good and well....as long as you're not putting the mug straight into a plastic box! lol.

I've been meaning to print a couple, dunk one and leave another to cool naturally to see what happens. It'd certainly be easier just to leave them

This is the post where it was discussed before....

http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum/sh ... light=dunk

[mrs maggot]

hi tony, have a read through the mug section of the site, there is quite a lot of info contained inthere, but it stops the process by cooling the mug down, either by dunking or a fan as some use

[Andrew]

Only certain designs we find are affected and need dunking but most we just let cool naturally. You get to know which designs are likely to bleed with experience.

[JSR]

If the mug is still over sublimation temperature then the ink on the mug will continue to sublimate. This can lead to blurring, but arguably more serious is that the print will migrate into areas that you haven't printed. Slight blurring you can put up with, but ghosting into unprinted areas looks awful.

I used to dunk but I now cool by desk fan.

Whether you need to do it depends on several factors, all of which relate to how quickly the mug cools down to below sublimation temperature.

If you're printing on a china mug, then it's quite thin and lightweight and cools quicker than, say, a 15oz El Grande which acts like a huge heat sink. You'll probably find you need a way to cool an El Grande, and probably the 11oz mugs. You may get away with the 10oz ones (but I cool by desk-fan anyway) and smaller/thinner mugs.

Then there's the way you press. If you use a mug oven, then the entire mug heats up to the same temperature and so will take a long time to cool down naturally. If you use a mug press, then the inside of the mug remains cooler than the outside and the area around the handle barely heats up at all. The cooler areas of the mug help distribute the heat naturally, leading to the mug reaching below-sublimation temperatures much quicker. You're more likely to need to dunk/fan-cool if you use a mug oven than if you use a mug press.

In short, an El Grande pressed in a mug oven is more likely to need a fast-cooling option than an china mug pressed in a mug press. However, if you cool an El Grande too quickly, it has a good chance of cracking.

It all comes down to what works for you. I know what works for me. And, in these summer months, having a desk fan whirring away is actually a bonus!

[JSR]

I've been meaning to print a couple, dunk one and leave another to cool naturally to see what happens.

If you do this test, be sure to note which mugs you're using.

I can tell you now that if you print nice big dark photos onto an El Grande in a mug oven and then you leave it on the desk to cool naturally, the print migrates badly. This may be less noticeable on photos that are printed to the very top of the mug, but I leave a gap all the way around mine. As heat rises, the dye-sub ink migrates into the space between the photo and the top of the mug. The result is absolutely *awful* - but it's avoided completely by cooling with a desk fan.

[photoscape]

On the cooling issue i dont dunk, but i have found if i put my mugs onto a piece of granite they heat transfers quickly and the mugs cool pretty fast, Just happend to be passing pound land when they put a load of granite chopping boards out, each one holds 6 cups and comes in very handy