Heat transfer or sublimation

[plugy]

I am totally new at this printing and have bought some equipment to have a go as i have lost my job.
What are the difference between these teqniues and viynal come to that.
Have used my old inject with the printable transfer paper before but found any paper over the image or where there were no colour we got yellow patches of glue, is this what you get with cheap stuff or just wrong application?
Ant advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Hoffman Fisher]

Hi plugy, I'm afraid I can't help as I'm on the same boat. I want to know basically if I can print onto 100% cotton and also print onto mugs using the same system, which from what I gather is not doable as sub printing with the dye inks can only be done on a poly/cotton mix and all the t-shirts then have to be light in colour whereas I would want to print on both dark and light without going down the line of vinyl printing. So hopefully some of this forums knowledgable experts will be able to give clarity to the points that are being made.

Cheers
H. Fisher

[purpledragon]

Quick Guide
to print mugs and solid items ie placemats etc you will need a sublimation set up this comprises of
1 mug and heat press
2 Sublimation inks (IT MUST BE DYE SUBLIMATION INKS ANYTHING ELSE WILL NOT WORK)
3 Sublimation paper this is paper which has a special coating on it which allows the sublimation process to work ( IT MUST BE DYE SUBLIMATION PAPER ANY THING ELSE WILL NOT WORK)
4 Sublimation printables ie mugs place mats etc theres plenty of suppliers on here for you to browse through (THEY MUST BE DYE SUBLIMATION PRINTABLES ANYTHING ELSE WONT WORK DONT THINK A CHEAP 20P MUG WILL WORK IT WONT)
5 You can not print onto cotton with dye sublimation IT WILL NOT WORK
If you want to print on cotton your options are as follows

1 direct to gament printer ok if you have £10,000 to spare
2 inkjet or laser transfers ok if you buy good quality transfer paper draw back is its a square/rectangle block unless you can set a cutter to cut your image out
3 Vinyl transfers this is the sort of stuff you see with a funny caption on a t shirt you can over lay colours but not good for complex images and you need a plotter cutter ££££££
4 screen print but you will need a spare room for this and years of experiance would help

Heres the advice bit
you can pay 100 quid and buy a mug press and press mugs but remember you get what you pay for buy the best quality you can afford if this means you start with just a mug press and build profit up so be it dont be tempted to buy cheap its a false economy. Sawgrass hold the license on small format sublimation inks if it aint sawgrass or one of their other names then it aint legal ink and not likly to give good results .
Copy right is a serious subject only a fool will think he can advertise man utd mugs and get away with it , you wont i dont care how many on ebay are doing it their time will come you may earn a couple of grand over a short period of time but paying out 10 or 20 times that amount in court fees and compenstaion is not good business sense YOU WILL BE CAUGHT.
Tax / nat ins/ and public liability think you can get away with this ? think again the tax man is looking at ebay very seriously at the moment you wont get away with it and remember when you buy 72 mugs from a supplier he sends you an invoice on that invoice are your details the tax man also has access to these invoices obviously so when he sees your name and address he aint gonna assume you just smash a lot of mugs he will know you are a business. And apart from that its the quickest way to alienate forum members and you will find your advice and help dries up after all why should i as a legite business give a fly by night chancer advice on how to under cut me
and lastly it aint as easy as it looks you will get printer problems , you will get product problems , you will get customer problems and that bit of cheap chinease metal you bought will break down in the middle of a big important job and theres not as much money in this as you would think .
happy printing
Brett

[Hoffman Fisher]

Well, thanks very much purpledragon, you certainly have answered more than was asked, I do appreciate that.

Quick Guide
to print mugs and solid items ie placemats etc you will need a sublimation set up this comprises of
1 mug and heat press
2 Sublimation inks (IT MUST BE DYE SUBLIMATION INKS ANYTHING ELSE WILL NOT WORK)
3 Sublimation paper this is paper which has a special coating on it which allows the sublimation process to work ( IT MUST BE DYE SUBLIMATION PAPER ANY THING ELSE WILL NOT WORK)
4 Sublimation printables ie mugs place mats etc theres plenty of suppliers on here for you to browse through (THEY MUST BE DYE SUBLIMATION PRINTABLES ANYTHING ELSE WONT WORK DONT THINK A CHEAP 20P MUG WILL WORK IT WONT)
5 You can not print onto cotton with dye sublimation IT WILL NOT WORK
If you want to print on cotton your options are as follows

1 direct to gament printer ok if you have £10,000 to spare
2 inkjet or laser transfers ok if you buy good quality transfer paper draw back is its a square/rectangle block unless you can set a cutter to cut your image out
3 Vinyl transfers this is the sort of stuff you see with a funny caption on a t shirt you can over lay colours but not good for complex images and you need a plotter cutter ££££££
4 screen print but you will need a spare room for this and years of experiance would help

Heres the advice bit
you can pay 100 quid and buy a mug press and press mugs but remember you get what you pay for buy the best quality you can afford if this means you start with just a mug press and build profit up so be it dont be tempted to buy cheap its a false economy. Sawgrass hold the license on small format sublimation inks if it aint sawgrass or one of their other names then it aint legal ink and not likly to give good results .
Copy right is a serious subject only a fool will think he can advertise man utd mugs and get away with it , you wont i dont care how many on ebay are doing it their time will come you may earn a couple of grand over a short period of time but paying out 10 or 20 times that amount in court fees and compenstaion is not good business sense YOU WILL BE CAUGHT.
Tax / nat ins/ and public liability think you can get away with this ? think again the tax man is looking at ebay very seriously at the moment you wont get away with it and remember when you buy 72 mugs from a supplier he sends you an invoice on that invoice are your details the tax man also has access to these invoices obviously so when he sees your name and address he aint gonna assume you just smash a lot of mugs he will know you are a business. And apart from that its the quickest way to alienate forum members and you will find your advice and help dries up after all why should i as a legite business give a fly by night chancer advice on how to under cut me
and lastly it aint as easy as it looks you will get printer problems , you will get product problems , you will get customer problems and that bit of cheap chinease metal you bought will break down in the middle of a big important job and theres not as much money in this as you would think .
happy printing
Brett

[purpledragon]

Well, thanks very much purpledragon, you certainly have answered more than was asked, I do appreciate that.

just anticipating future questions

[smitch6]

some great info there purple
perhaps the boss can split it and make that post into a sticky info topic for newbies

[bigj2552]

some great info there purple
perhaps the boss can split it and make that post into a sticky info topic for newbies

Agreed - these should be stickys - as i done when i was at the very begining - asking the same questions over n over....stickys would save the long term members getting p'd off replying to the same questions ! - job done !

[mrs maggot]

Brett, i love you, its perfect, lets hope justin - or one of the other mods, will make this a great sticky

[TonyM]

Hi both.
I empathise with you both as i too lost my job and thought I could........TBH.........pad out my unemployment a little. Sorry folks, just being honest here. But I learned the hard way. Reading Purpledragons post may at first read seem a bit harsh. But it is the truth. I bought a batch of smart price mugs ( 64 in packs of 4 from Asda) and some transfers. What a killing I was going to make? Mugs 4 for 99p and the slidable transfers. Looked bloody great they did. I had them all lined up and went to bed like the new Alan Sugar. In the morning was a different story, The paper had lost its transparency and it looked as if i had just stuck a picture on the mugs. The first sign of water they peeled. Luckily my endeavour wasnt too expensive on this occasion.
I then discovered this website, as you have and tried it again.
But did I listen fully? Did I hell as like.
I bought a second hand epson printer, some old inks (but they were sublimation)in a used continuous feed system that was blocked, a cheap mug press and multi purpose heat press. I reckoned I would need this for when i started doing caps, plates and a whole myriad of items.
Well after wasting hundreds of pounds and never really solving the blockage problem and making countless Simpsons mugs (yellow faces) that were meant to be photos of people I was cheesed off. This is not a joke. BUT! seeing as my black ink seemed to flow freely I thought I would just do a few black and white things. The handle on my cheap mug press had bent and was useless. it never really worked and the best coverage I could get was with a half inch border top to bottom anyhow? I had limited success with the black and white as they seemed to come out more brown. This game is not as easy as people think and I was finding out old school.
It was at this point i thought sod it.
I gave up. If you look at my history on this forum you will see I ask all the questions all the newbies ask and then i dissapear.
After a long gap i come back as I am now working and instead of needing to make things out of desperation, I want to.
I decide not to go down the cheapo road and the first thing I buy is a Ricoh printer with the sublimation Cartridges. What a revelation that was!!!!!!!!HALLEBLOODYLUYA!!!!!!!!!!A printer that actually prints without blockingup AND it uses powerdriver which is a godsend because it allows one to use any programme one wants and adjusts all the colours accordingly, it even reverses the image and text. Ok not a massive revelation, but the ammount of times i would forget something so simple.
Next I purchased some decent mugs from BMS and will always be grateful to martin for the advice he gave me( Ibought the printer from BMS too). the only risk i took was i bought my mug press from someone on a site called pre-loved. But it was local and he offered to show it me working and even suggested I bring a couple of prints and he would instruct me how to use the press. This was not cheap. I paid over £250 but checked out the website and they are around the £700 mark. Using my prints that i had done on the new Ricoh he pressed a mug and it was perfect. I bought the press and was on my way
I still struggle at times but usually it is cos I have bought cheap stuff and I maybe do not get a good sharp image near the bottom where the Mug is thickest.
I havent made my fortune yet and i still work for someone else, but I enjoy what i am doing and hope one day to be able to join those fortunate enough to have such a creative way of making an income.
Sorry this was massive. But i do feel for the origonal 2 posters.
The Moral has many layers I think?
You get what you pay for
Buy cheap, buy twice,
If it was easy everyone would do it.
Research before spending.
And so on!
Hahahaha I am just going to hit the "post Quick Reply" PMSL
Best regards
Boring old fart

[gorgall2]

I tried waterslide transfers at first, bloody awful.