Advice from you great people needed!

[lemontdetroit84]

Ok so I'm new to sublimation mug printing! I am in the process of sorting out my profile with the amazing Paul who has helped me soooooo much with that issue. While I am waiting for my profile I have been messing with my mug press and I thought I would try a full colour mug just to test it out. I have a chinese mug press with no tempreture changing ability on it. When I do a full colour mug print you can see an outline of the heating elements. Im getting confused as to wether Im not cooking the mug for long enough. I have put a blank mug in for 180 seconds and then put the full colour mug in for 180 seconds. After taking out the mug it shows the outline of the heating elements that are in the wrap. The mug press I have is:

http://www.cityinkexpress.co.uk/ink-pro ... fr-sub-004

any help would be greatly appreciated

[socialgiraffe]

It sounds like the blanket you have is too cheap or the pressure is not right.

To get the pressure right you need to be able to place the mug inside the wrap and not be able to turn/rotate the mug easily. I always say, if you can turn it with one hand then it is too loose. If you can not turn it with two hands it is too tight.

If you pressure is right then I would say that the blanket is not up to the standard you or anyone else would expect.

[WorthDoingRight]

Do not be afraid to try a sheet of plain white paper around the sublimation paper in the press. It does sound like the press is clamping too hard. Follow Simon's advice and check your clamping pressure.

[jennywren]

Do not be afraid to try a sheet of plain white paper around the sublimation paper in the press. It does sound like the press is clamping too hard. Follow Simon's advice and check your clamping pressure.

I do that with all the mugs , it helps also with ink being transferred on your press.

[meldean]

ummm thats confused me now.... lol

are you saying you put your sublimation transfer on the mug and then put plain paper round and press...
if so why do you do this please as i feel like im missing something...

[mrs maggot]

meldean, the ink can come through and will bleed into your mug blanket (the bit that heats up) so you can end up with smudged prints on future mugs, i buy a cheap baking re-usable baking sheet and cut it into strips, you get 3 mug wraps per sheet, and use those until they split normally 50/75 mugs or you can just use plain a4 paper and discard when you see its dirty

[jennywren]

God I envy people that can explain in simple terms, I would have like to answer that question but would have ran around the woods and back just to explain what you put in a few words, me I would have bored them to death with how I explain things well done mrs maggot

[WorthDoingRight]

Well I was also suggesting it to try to reduce the element marks he was experiencing.

[meldean]

Ahhh right im with you. Thanks for the wicked explanation.

[RogerC]

Are you certain you cant control the temperature because in the ad it says "Temperature Range: 0-220 C". If you can't control the temperature how will you know if the heat is too high or too low? If you really can't control the temperature I think you will be wasting a great deal of mugs trying to 'guesstimate' the cooking time for each mug you put through it.