New Press arrived today - Hope to have a play later

[WorthDoingRight]

Hi All,

Finally decided after much deliberation to start my sublimation life with a mug press and save up for a standalone flat press.

So hopefully sometime later today I will try to sublimate a mug and let you all know how it goes.

So watch this space

[sonywiz]

Good luck, you'll enjoy it .....eventually :biggrin:

[RogerC]

Have fun...and exercise patience unless you get the heat/time/pressure settings spot on from the outset.

[WorthDoingRight]

Well, I doubt things will go right from the start but I have tried to read as much as I can on the principles and techniques and tend to be quite good with technical things. So as they say watch this space.

[WorthDoingRight]

Well a quick update to my progress. After working out how the refillable cartridges go into the printer (you push them in then lift the lever to lock them in place and then put the door lever plastic bit in to fool the machine) and running through the printer test with ok results I attempted to print on sublimation paper that had not been stored flat so was banana shaped! Needless to say the printer either failed to feed it or jammed on it and then i finally got an image but with some bleed. After messing for a while and changing a few settings I finally got a bleed free image and used that to make my first mug. I followed my mug press instructions except I used a plain mug in the press whilst heating to 180 and then swapped to my sublimation mug where the machine then dropped in temperature to 150 degrees. Now not being too sure I waited for it to re-attain 180 degrees before cooking it for 180 secs (this may or may not be the right method so advice would be useful).
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Sorry about the pics, taken in a dark room with no flash and a bit of wobbly hand crept in. Must say I am not unhappy with the outcome.

[Dave271069]

Looks good, ahhh they always say you never forget your first!

[smitch6]

well done for breaking ur virginity lol
they look a bit washed out or is that the actual image?

[WorthDoingRight]

they look a bit washed out or is that the actual image?

Well, I took the photographs handheld in very bad light at very slow shutter speeds so the images are dull. In reality the images are vivid. Still having issues actually getting a decent print to sublimate as the paper seems to curl in a manner that I think rubs against the print head. I need to experiment with setting the paper type a bit to see if a slower printing speed may give better results - the smudging of the image is however inconsistent so perhaps a change of sublimation paper might be a good idea just to eliminate that as an issue. It may also be too much ink is being laid down as the smudging seems to involve the magenta ink more so than the cyan/yellow inks.

[sonywiz]

Shame you not got a flat bed press, could have popped the paper in that for a few seconds to flatten out. Least you've managed to do something. At first it seems like throwing money away... but then.... ta dah ! keep at it.

[RogerC]

congratulations on the first production.....it's a nice feeling i'nit.