Discuss the various aspects of heat press technology. Transfer paper, inks, plastisol transfers, vinyl cutters, printers, commercial usage, durability, suppliers, etc.
Just of rescent i have forked out some good money for which i thought would be a good hobby to do at home,i bought a new epson r290 ,sublimation ink,a new cup press machine SB03 and new sublimation cups,the person i bought the stuff of owns two print shops and yes they have been helpfull in some ways but not others ,they are to hard to understand there english is not the best ,so i turned to the internet and have spent many hours reading and found this forum and hope i can get help here,i have printed 7 cups and each one is a rotten egg,the man who i bought the press ect of told me to use good quailty 80 gram normal printing paper ,i found the image to be slighty blurry and not good colour ,i mucked around with the paper using four cups and played around with the contrast ect the last one i printed out was ok but still not the quality you see ,then i used some good quality 103 gram premium photo quality inkjet acid free matt paper the image quality was worse and blotchy looking when on the paper and then printing on the cup in the press,i was told i could use a photo so i printed of two 6x4 pictures on epson premium glossy 255 gram photo paper,the image was at least 50 per cent clearer then using the plain paper and the photograpic paper ,i then taped the images to the cup using heat tape and pressed in the cup press for 3 minutes at 360 then placed in warm water to cool down like i did all the cups and holy cow trying to peel it of ,i gave up and went to bed when i got up in the moring i started working at getting the paper of and in time it did come of and i noticed it also had a film layer using my finger nails i got 90 per cent of it off and i was impressed with the quailty regardless how hard it was getting of then horror some of the image come of when i was lighty scratching away just using my finger nail,was this mug under cooked?? the image on the otherside was fine,so i got another cup which i had done and i got a pair of nail clipers and gently scratch at it and horror it scratched the image so easy,so i got my coka a cola cup which i bought about four years ago and really attacked it and i couldnt even leave a mark on it,no instructions come with the mug press i have it set on 360 and press a cup for three minutes,how comes the printed shop cups dont scratch ,do i need to further bake the cups in the heat press,what paper is best for me to use,what are the best settings for my printer for a good image and colour like you see whn printing using normal ink,i do have another new epson r290 which i use for photo printing ,cd printing and canvas printing and the quailty is very good,i know sublimation ink looks a bit washed out before you cup press it ,but i am not happy with the quality of which it prints let alone the images scratching of the cups,the cups being used are fully sublimated covered and used by many nz printers ,the ink is a good ink the company who i bought it of has a couple of print shop and i believe they wouldnt have two shops if what they used was rubbish ,please what am i doing wrong ,i feel so dishearted please i would be greatfull for any help kind regards Tracee NZ
Try sublimation paper it is around $15 a pack. This way you don't have to keep fooling around with different paper types as it is designed to work with sublimation ink unlike the other papers you are using.
Also check out youtube.com, several how to videos on sublimation.
Thank you for that,i will get some sublimation paper this week,i am using adobe cs on this computer ,what do i have the settings on for best image printing with sublimation ink cmyk??? i would be gratefull for as many tips as possible and links pointng me in the right direction for mug printing thank you for your help and time
What mugs are you using?
There is 2 types of mugs coating , a soft coating to be used with lazer printed transfers
and hard coated mugs to be used with inkjet printed transfers.
Sounds like you have soft coated mugs with the paper becoming stuck.
Might want to check out DyeSub.org - An educational site for dye sublimation and digital transfer printing. for more helpful info.
the one in which the photo stuck on to it was with proper photgraphic paper ,could have been the film on it causing that,all i know about the cups they are made in china they have a hand holding a cup in a grass green colour,i have email the person whome i have bought the stuff of hoping her can say why or help,should a hard coated sublimation cup scratch at all
I'm just getting into sublimation and is in the testing phase right now. I printed last week a mug for a friend with a picture of her grandson on it. I printed it with mugs from Conde as well as sublimation paper from Conde and it came out beautifully. Now I never new that you needed to print sublimation photos with photo paper. I was not told this. Is that how you truly print photos on mugs because I used sublimation paper?
Sublimation paper is made so that the ink does not get inveded in the paper. They make simple release and high release for hard surfaces, use the regular release.
Regular paper traps some of the ink, reducing your image resolution.
I read here that some use regular paper, I can't, I need my stuff to look better if possible, than the competition.
Glad to no I was doing things the right way.
I have to agree with Gioclone. I bought some of the paper that a user here said worked great from Staples and the results just did not look as great as the ones done with the sublimation paper. I am still new and have only been doing sublimation for about 5 months and I no I still have more to learn but i happen to like the results with the sublimation paper better.
For the best Mug, Buy paper from Johnson Plastics www.johnonplastics.biz. You can use this paper to print Mug or 50/50 Poly-cotton white t-shirt with great results, occours using sublimation Ink. They are the best!
printing horror mugs 
Re: printing horror mugs 
cant get braodband where i live yet
