Printing on the Bottom of Sub Mugs.

[arthur.daley]

that piston would be a good starting point to test the principle although personally I would go for a solid lump of ali - greater mass and much smaller surface area to lose heat from. You might want to skim the top flat - pistons not usually dead flat on the top, otherwise you may have to put more silicon in which is not a good thing.

The fire certainly should do the trick and I see to recall you have an optical temp device of some kind so monitoring the temperature of the piston and how it loses heat during the cooking time should be easy enough to monitor.

Keep posting how the experiment is going!

Arthur

[socialgiraffe]

Personally I think you may be going about this the wrong way Nik.

Although sublimation needs pressure, it does not need huge amounts. Have you tried something like a softpad? That may do the trick and then you can rely on the pressure from the plate press and also the temperature.

[NikGrey]

Here's the piston now (It does have a flat top - only about 80cc 2 stroke engine).

I will test this soon, probably use a few silicon disks to even out the puck to the contour of the mug base.

[NikGrey]

I spent the day on this Yesterday and late into the night I finally cracked it - I think the coating on the bottom of these mugs may be 'Overspray' as it seems to work to a degree - as you can see I have even colour coverage but its washed out. BUT does the job in telling people it's Dishwasher safe.

I'm happy with this now.

I used the Piston Puck with 9 disks of Silicon, if I used just the Puck and a few silicon sheets too much heat was transferring to the mug.

[arthur.daley]

Hi Nik

Looking good. I guess that you could set the colours to be darker in the print to allow for the washing out? If it is overspray it may be a bit hit and miss as to whether or not there is enough over spray for the image to be even and whether or not the image takes and is permanent. If it is very inconsistent coverage how many mugs can you afford to waste with a duff logo? I know its possible to burn off a screened image but doubt you could remove the sub logo from the bottom of a mug without trashing the coating on the body of the mug. The other draw back is that you can't use Lisatwoods Duraglaze mugs.

Maybe the mug manufacturers need to be encouraged to spray the mug bases.

Personally I am still looking at going down the pad printing route. Have ordered some samples of quick drying inks that are supposed to be cured for 30 minutes in an oven but may achieve a high enough level of permanency when the sub image is cooked on to the mug. The inks may discolour at the higher sub temperatures apparently the colours go a bit pale and yellow but if I am using a solid black thinned with a high level of solvent I may get away with it - nothing to lose!



Arthur

[pisquee]

We treid using permanent ink with a custom rubber stamp, but it was more miss than it in getting a good enough print that it wasn't a viable route, as we would ruin perfectly good mugs with awful stamping on the bases.
We did think about putting the plate press to this use (like Nik has), but decided in the end not to go down that route, as it increases the production time per mug for something that doesn't add any more value to the product.
We settled for vinyl stickers from Chongsta on here - using outdoor clear vinyl, which survives going through the dishwasher.
We are now buying our mugs in direct from Thailand by the pallet load, and sometime next year, probably pallet 3, we will be getting our logo/branding printed onto the mug at the factory, which costs a tiny bit more than getting the vinyls printed, but we don't have the job of labelling up boxes of mugs before shipping them out, which time wise does add up into another task.

[arthur.daley]

We treid using permanent ink with a custom rubber stamp, but it was more miss than it in getting a good enough print that it wasn't a viable route, as we would ruin perfectly good mugs with awful stamping on the bases.

hi Pisquee

When you say it was hit and miss I am guessing that you may have had problems getting an even impression on the mug or possibly the stamp would slide ever so slightly and smudge a bit?


Arthur

[NikGrey]

Thanks Arthur (Tried to give you a Rep point but I have recently apportioned One to you so can't) I will try giving it more colour.

I can get consistent results at the moment with these Mugs so will do them all in One go now I have settled on the design and process.

Mugs are a problem for many it seems, maybe a few of us should club together and buy a Pallet of the same type our 'Tall Friend' uses whilst they are still available ?

[NikGrey]

Just about to print another sheet of these Mug Base Stamps - before I mess with the colours can someone remind me which paper setting lays down the most ink ? I think I did some testing and found Plain paper seemed to lay the most ink but am not certain.

[NikGrey]

Here is the final design.

Piston top, 8 aluminium drinks can disks and 2 silicon sheets.