)I am looking to buy a mug press and printer - so far so good!
I saw the Novachrome kit being demo'd at a photographic trade show. I liked the look of the results on mugs, coasters, bags and all manner of other stuff. However, it is particularly mugs that I am interested in at the moment. I liked the look of the company. They seemed open with advice and their purported back up looked good. Everything was simple back then. I just needed to decide which starter package I wanted A4 or A3 flat bed or no flat bed. its all been on hold, sitting in the back of my mind waiting for a reason to take it further - the reason has just appeared on the horizon! We want to have 100 mugs printed at work, the ladies in the office who are driving this forward would like a couple of designs on bone china mugs - ideally straight and not fluted at the top although that last detail seems to change every other day. I have tried to persuade them to go with bog standard ceramic mugs which will be much more robust and cheaper. The mugs get used by students in our tea room and go in the dishwasher every day. The prices they were being quoted - don't know who was quoting ranged from £5 to £9 each for quantities of 50 - 100 of the same design which seemed a bit steep when I thought back to the figures being touted by Novachrome.
However, after looking through this and other forums I really don't know which way to jump! I still like Novachrome although I don't see their name mentioned here in response to newbie enquiries and general equipment/supplies queries. I get the impression they may be a bit dearer for the same quality of kit as supplied by other companies??
I really do not want to buy cheap equipment - as is often repeated here, buy it cheap buy it twice. I have access to a niche market - not huge numbers but what I think could be a steady stream of orders for bespoke small batch and single mugs which the clients would happily pay for and better still it would all be by word of mouth advertising. I have donkeys years of photographic experience and am quite at home with Photoshop and the concepts of calibrating screens for colour control. So that side of the business is sorted, but as to what to buy
So far as I can see the Ricoh printers are the ones to go for - A4 = SG3110DN or A3 = SG7100DN. The cost to run figure quoted by Novachrome were 64p for a 10x8 on the A4 and 28p for a 10x8 on the A3 (I assume you are still printing on A4 paper and the saving is down to the quantity of ink supplied with the printer). So the A3 would be the better option, higher initial cost but long term its a better bet and if in the future I want to print on larger flat items. Unless of course I am missing something obvious or putting too much trust in a salesmans figures!
When it comes to the mug press - this is where my head starts to spin. I know I don't want a £50 press from China on ebay, but there seems to be a whole range of presses available from say £125 to nearly £300 and I just can't see what the differences are. My criteria for a press would be that I when I start printing mugs I need a system that makes loading the mugs fairly quick and simple and mugs can be pressed in quick succession and consistently - seems that the combination of time/temp/pressure need to be carefully controlled for consistent quality, so having a press with a wandering temperature or where the pressure changes as the press gets hot is important to avoid. So what is the difference between the offerings of the various suppliers mentioned in the forums???
Someone throw me a lifeline and save my sanity
)In an ideal world I'd like to see all of the usual suspects wares at a trade show but I don't suppose there is anything coming up where they will all be there??
regards
Arthur
Some days you're the dog, some days you're the lamp post
