Is it luck, easy or something else?

[socialgiraffe]

Hi All

As many of you know I have been in the dye sub business for quite some time. My main business has always been mugs and to be honest anything else I print is only because I am either greedy and have seen the dollar signs in the job, or I am doing it as a favour.

I have aways purchased good kit like a Ricoh printer or "5 mugs at once" from heatpress UK and I always purchase good quality blanks from BMS.

When I split from my business partner I started to look at expanding my product lines and at "direct to consumer" items because there were some weeks when the orders were quite thin on the ground. I purchased iphone covers, photo slates and loads of other items to test print and look at selling either through a website or possibly on ebay. Nothing came of it as the mugs picked up but I recently have done some other bits n bobs for people as favours.

Now, there is not much anyone can tell me about mug printing (although finding out about masking tape today was a new one ) and if I ever get a problem I can normally tell exactly what went wrong immediately. But sublimating other items is still something that I see myself as a novice at. However, I have printed several different items over the past few days (photo slates, iphone covers etc. etc.) and not had one single failure. If you take the photo slates for example I followed the instructions on the BMS website exactly and hey presto perfection.

So my question is....

Have I been lucky in not having any failures or does the fact of purchasing decent kit and more importantly (IMHO) purchasing good quality items from reputable suppliers remove almost all potential problems and failures or is sublimation that easy?

Not looking for a definitive answer but just interested in starting a thread to see what insiders think about the industry in general.

[WorthDoingRight]

They say 'you make your own luck'. I think that you are less likely to make a simple mistake the more practice you have. Your question reminds me of the time I moved into a new house and could not get the bed up the stairs. My father suggested I had a word with a mutual friend who made wooden windows and seek his advice. So he turns up at my house and says 'I know how to get the bed into the house I will take the 4' x 6' bedroom window glass out'. He then went on to ask me if I has any ladders, a hammer and a chisel! Armed with my makeshift kit he climbed the ladder removed the putty and tacks from the outside of the glass and then turned the glass inwards and passed it to me through the now glassless window frame. He then carried on his own the bed frame up the ladders and put that through the window fram also and then said 'Do you have any putty and panel pins?'. Obviously I did not so he drove to the local wickes store and came back with both. He then opened the putty, rolled it and kneaded it and then went back up the ladder to put a bedding bead in then got me to pass him the glass which he then tacked into place and finally used th putty on the outside to hold it in place. He came down the ladder told me to paint the putty in a couple of weeks and said 'No charge, it was fun'. A week later I locked my only set of house keys in the house, and remembering I had the hammer,chisel etc in the car I decided to remove a small pane of glass to allow me to hook my keys off the window sill. Well, on the 2nd or 3rd tap of the chisel I broke the glass pane. So I removed the remaining glass and putty etc and fished my keys out and went to buy a new piece of glass. On my return I opened the putty container and could I knead the putty - no way it just stuck to my hands and would not roll. So i ended up putting the glass back by scraping bits of putty into place with the chisel and using the panel pins. I finally got the outside putty in covered with thumb prints etc and looking a real dogs dinner.

To this day I cannot think of anything I did differently to the friend but obviously he had skills I did not from years of practice. I think once you have these skills it is easy to think nothing of them and assume that they have no effect on similar tasks.

For beginners I think the saying 'Fail to prepare then prepare to fail' is often the case. Who reads manuals these days? Who looks for the correct times and pressure settings prior to pressing?

I do think equipment plays a part but like most things 'operator error' is probably the biggest cause of failure. There is no substitute for experience unless like me you are naturally talented lol

[gorgall2]

The masking tape idea was mentioned on the uksignboards a while ago, with a couple of people swearing by it. Has to be low tak apparently.

[purpledragon]

Have I been lucky in not having any failures or does the fact of purchasing decent kit and more importantly (IMHO) purchasing good quality items from reputable suppliers remove almost all potential problems and failures or is sublimation that easy?

Not looking for a definitive answer but just interested in starting a thread to see what insiders think about the industry in general.

Think youve answered your own question there. Like you i have bought good quality kit and rarely have pressing problems , i was astounded to read in one post that someone has problems printing iphone cases imho these are probably the easiest and less troublesome to press than the majority of items . There are some issues that arise but common sense can quite often provide a sensible soloution eg i did used to get like a water mark on certain items place mats being the worst culprit but with the addition of a very low cost soloution the problem disappeared. I think most the problems on this forum experianced by members are generally down to inferior items inferior equiptment and frankly inferior knowladge

[jennywren]

Have I been lucky in not having any failures or does the fact of purchasing decent kit and more importantly (IMHO) purchasing good quality items from reputable suppliers remove almost all potential problems and failures or is sublimation that easy?

Not looking for a definitive answer but just interested in starting a thread to see what insiders think about the industry in general quote form Socail giraffe


I think that the industry in general is changing, its becoming a saturated market, it can all be done in a back room, with hardly any outlay, pocket money for those hobbyist, people using images they shouldn't be, the internet has open up a whole new market for everyone and images.