# How to make something so you can do sublimation



## welnick (Feb 11, 2010)

Hello,

Ok, so i am taking the dip into sublimation. Getting my feet wet. I am probably going to get the ricoh gx3300. Any ideas on that? Good, bad?

Also, in my research I have learned that you can't just sublimate anything. It has to have a special coating on it. In an example i saw..."you can't just run down to home depot and buy wood and tiles and start sublimating" Is there something out there, a spray, or a paint, or something that could make it so you can turn something not ready to be sublimated into something that could be?

Let me know your thoughts.


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## lben (Jun 3, 2008)

welnick said:


> Hello,
> 
> Ok, so i am taking the dip into sublimation. Getting my feet wet. I am probably going to get the ricoh gx3300. Any ideas on that? Good, bad?
> 
> ...


I've tried the spray - it does not work. Your best bet is to purchase products specifically manufactured for sublimation. You can get them from Conde or Bestblanks or any number of other vendors (on the left of this screen). You will also need sublimation ink and paper.

As far as the Ricoh goes, I have heard bad things about them as far as reliability is concerned. Do a search on here for that and you'll see what I mean. You might want to consider an epson printer, but check on the vendors ink page to see which printer has the cheapest ink cartridges. Sub ink is very expensive.


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

Loretta is correct...forget the DIY sublimation coating...I have been doing sublimation for over 10years and have yet to find ANY after market coating that is viable to give to a friend....let alone to be commercially acceptable. Yes the ink is expensive, but you are selling the results..bright vibrant colors....AND remember the hard substrates must be coated...and not from home depot and garments must be 100% Polyester...white or light pastel. If you use 50/50 blend...the ink will only adhere to the polyester and will wash off the cotton fibers...giving sort of a grunt look...


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## Conde_David (May 29, 2008)

I believe the Ricoh printers are much better
than epson printers for sublimation. The cost
of printing on the Ricoh is half if the epson.

Yes there have been some issues but they
are a fraction of epson failures.


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## D.Evo. (Mar 31, 2006)

Reading the forums on regular bases I appears to me that Ricoh gel printers have better reputation than Epson when it comes to reliability. 

Like Loretta and Charles already said - don't even waste your time experimenting with DIY coating. If you want to have professional results - use good quality substrates and materials. Otherwise, there will be a lot of frustration, inconsistency and wasted consumables.

There are hundreds of different kinds of blanks suitable for dye sublimation out there - you are bound to find the ones that will work for your business model. 

Good luck!


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

When it comes to dye sub it seems you are stuck between a rock and a hard spot. Ricohs do seem to be failing at a high rate and through all the post about the subject no one ever seems to mention why. Surely Ricoh and the vendors know the problem by now. Can ink really cause board to fry? On the flip side you have Epsons which are complete work horses but if you are in the desktop market Sawgrass forces you to use their poor quality ink that has a clogging issue. We have printed over 100,000 feet in the approx 14 months on an Epson 9800 and only had one standard maintenancecall and never had a clog. The secret? We do not use Sawgrass ink. Sawgrass is a prime example where a monoply completly rips off the consumer.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Define "high rate".......I have never seen any statistics about failure rates so it is hard to say whether the number is low or high...


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

royster13 said:


> Define "high rate".......I have never seen any statistics about failure rates so it is hard to say whether the number is low or high...


Seriously? Do you expect Ricoh to publish them? I will take it one step further. I would bet that the average desktop dye sub Ricoh printer is used 100 times+ less than an average small office printer thus the failure rate per foot of printer would be astronomical in comparison.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Based on the reading I have done on forums like this, I think the failure rates is quite small and many folks have have been able to make quite a bit of money with these cheap printers......


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## WOO HOO (Dec 16, 2010)

Sublimation is good for small orders, Vapor apparral is the best garment for sublimation use. would definatly use the Epson printer, it was designed for sublimation.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

WOO HOO said:


> use the Epson printer, it was designed for sublimation.


Where is the source of this information?.....


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## WOO HOO (Dec 16, 2010)

WOO HOO said:


> Sublimation is good for small orders, Vapor apparral is the best garment for sublimation use. would definatly use the Epson printer, it was designed for sublimation.


look at the sawgrass website


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

WOO HOO said:


> look at the sawgrass website


Where?......And is there anything in the Epson literature that says so?.....


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## jdoug5170 (Sep 8, 2010)

I know Epson printers were not designed for sublimation use....just a convenient platform.

Now, there was a company that announced they were in the process of developing a sublimation specific, desktop printer a few years ago....but like so much of what "they" say, it was just some old vapor....reminded me so much of the early years of computers...

In the desktop printer arena, we are just plain stuck with either Epson or Ricoh. Move up to wide format at you have a few more options and most important, ink choices. 

Doug


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## fwynn (Oct 22, 2010)

I want to make custom mugs with my designs mostly consisting of text. what is the best method.


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## lben (Jun 3, 2008)

fwynn said:


> I want to make custom mugs with my designs mostly consisting of text. what is the best method.[/quote
> For mugs and other small stuff I would go with an Epson c88+. It is less than $100 brand new from Epson.


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## fwynn (Oct 22, 2010)

At the risk of sounding stupid,what should I do after I get the printer and heat press and mug press? What kind of paper and inks do I need. Can I order customer mug transfers? and the method that you have in mind can itbe done with a mug press or wraps. Please help. I am very new to this whole printing thing but I am stepping out on faith knowing that it is part of my calling! ANY ADVICE WOULD MOST APPRECIATED.
Thanks in advance!!!


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## lben (Jun 3, 2008)

fwynn said:


> At the risk of sounding stupid,what should I do after I get the printer and heat press and mug press? What kind of paper and inks do I need. Can I order customer mug transfers? and the method that you have in mind can itbe done with a mug press or wraps. Please help. I am very new to this whole printing thing but I am stepping out on faith knowing that it is part of my calling! ANY ADVICE WOULD MOST APPRECIATED.
> Thanks in advance!!!


While you are waiting for your printer and press to arrive you should go to bestblanks or conde and get the sublimation paper (in a size and style your printer will accept (letter, legal, ink jet or laser) and then buy your sublimation ink for your printer as well. You cannot do sublimation without either of these. Next you will need to order your blanks - again Conde or bestblanks or any number of other vendors listed on the left of this screen also carry blanks.

If you want to have someone else make your transfers for you, you will have to make sure that they make sublimation transfers for you. You must also be willing to pay a hefty fee for those transfers and an even higher fee to do any artwork for you. 

You can apply the transfers with either a mug wrap in a convection oven (not the oven you cook in either - you don't want the dye getting into your food) or you can put them in a mug press. You'll have to buy a mug wrap if you want to use a wrap to make them.

I suggest you do more research on the subject because you keep asking the same questions and I can see your head spinning with confusion. If you feel that this is truly your calling, I suggest you do some serious research on the subject. Stop asking questions and go do some homework on sublimation. Conde has a lot of videos on their website that show how to sublimate. They also have instructions on their website for printing on all of their products. Do some searches here. Most of your questions have already been answered hundreds of times elsewhere in this forum, so spend some time researching the information that is already here.

You will also need some design software. You can start with the basic t-shirt sublimation software from bestblanks and then once you have mastered the basics you can move up to a more sophisticated software like coreldraw or adobe illustrator.

I'm thinking you looked at the prices and decided it would be cheaper to have someone else do the transfers for you. Wrong. That is a very expensive way to do things. There is a big initial cost for equipment and supplies and there is a big learning curve. It takes time and money.


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## jdoug5170 (Sep 8, 2010)

Read the posts here in the sublimation folder, they will answer many of your questions. Go to dyesub.org and read the posts there, they will answer more questions.

Go to youtube and search on sublimation mugs....lots of videos posted for your education. Go to Conde.com, Johnson Plastics, Best Blanks.....

In other words....do your due diligence. the internet is full of answers, you just need to look around. When you have specific questions, post them here and we will answer them.

Doug


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## fwynn (Oct 22, 2010)

Thanks you for the stern yet very well appreciated advice.I was just on Coastal Business Supply co's website researching the sublimation process. They have it all there step by step in plain ol' black and white. but again thank you. Sometime I get ahead of myself and ask questions as soon as it pops in my head. and then regardless of the reply research it for myself for my own comfort.


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## jiarby (Feb 8, 2007)

> I want to make custom mugs with my designs mostly consisting of text. what is the best method


Rotary Screen Printing... or Pad printing.


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## fwynn (Oct 22, 2010)

I am not sure. let me research the difference between the two. reallyquick and I will get back to u.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Large mug decorators will rotary screen print mugs with frit inks and kiln fire them for a lasting imprint......Best you can do if you do it yourself is epoxy inks which are not as durable....If you take a pot scrubber to frit ink it will not rub off.....Other inks will....


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## fwynn (Oct 22, 2010)

rotary sound like the best method but right now just starting off. I want ot offer a mug that will have simple text, easy and fast to produce. In additon to adding text to the mug (coffee mugs) I will also offer the option of adding a photo. rotary is something that I would love to get into after I am up and running and of course more knowledgeable. Thanks for the reply!! I love them. I am learning so much! I love this forum it is truly a blessing to me!


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## lben (Jun 3, 2008)

fwynn said:


> Thanks you for the stern yet very well appreciated advice.I was just on Coastal Business Supply co's website researching the sublimation process. They have it all there step by step in plain ol' black and white. but again thank you. Sometime I get ahead of myself and ask questions as soon as it pops in my head. and then regardless of the reply research it for myself for my own comfort.


My bad. I thought you were to OP asking for the umpeeth time. I didn't mean to sound stern. I am not that far into all of this to come off like an expert in any sense of the word. But I did spend countless hours researching, reading, watching videos, talking to vendors, and then when I couldn't find the answer on my own I came here and asked.

One such call to a vendor went like this:

"Ok, I ordered your pet id tags. First off they're the wrong color. I thought I was ordering the white ones but these are blue. So I'm not sure if these just weren't meant for sublimation or what, but everything looks great until I press it. Then I get this nasty mess on the tag that won't come off even with a brillo pad. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong."

I could hear him chuckling under his breath. When he was finally able to speak he said: "First of all, they are white. But we do put a blue plastic film on them to protect the surface from scratches until you print them. I'm sure if you remove the blue film and try another one it will print perfectly for you."

Well, duh, ya think??? They never tell you when they are putting that layer of plastic on a substrate. Some have them and some don't. So I wrote the book on stupid questions. My apologies for sounding so harsh.


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## lben (Jun 3, 2008)

fwynn said:


> rotary sound like the best method but right now just starting off. I want ot offer a mug that will have simple text, easy and fast to produce. In additon to adding text to the mug (coffee mugs) I will also offer the option of adding a photo. rotary is something that I would love to get into after I am up and running and of course more knowledgeable. Thanks for the reply!! I love them. I am learning so much! I love this forum it is truly a blessing to me!


Rotary printers are expensive (thousands of $$) and are limited. Somewhere on here was a video (foreign language so I couldn't understand what they were saying) but it showed rolling a glass over a screen. It was a one color job, but I was impressed with how simple they made it look.

If you want to put photos on mugs stick with sublimation. You just have to keep in mind that sublimation is expensive. The blanks are expensive and the whole printing process is expensive. And because they are so expensive people aren't willing to pay the prices you need to charge in order to make a nice profit.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

My Walmart is selling mugs for 11.95 while you wait......And like most things they do, they are probably bringing in their own blanks from overseas.....So they are probably paying way less that 0.91 for each mug (Cactus Mugs skid price).....


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## fwynn (Oct 22, 2010)

lben said:


> My bad. I thought you were to OP asking for the umpeeth time. I didn't mean to sound stern. I am not that far into all of this to come off like an expert in any sense of the word. But I did spend countless hours researching, reading, watching videos, talking to vendors, and then when I couldn't find the answer on my own I came here and asked.
> 
> One such call to a vendor went like this:
> 
> ...


No need for apologies, I needed that! We all have to pay our own dues and it is not fair for me or anyone else to try and get around that. your adivice was perfect, keep it coming!!!


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## jdoug5170 (Sep 8, 2010)

OK Loretta...ya got me now!

Sublimation mugs are so expensive that people won't pay the price so that one can make a nice profit on 'em!

Come on, get real! I have gone through so many cases of mugs this last season I hate to think that I have not made money on them. Let's see, I pay about $1.60 a mug, freight adds another $.50 to each (remember, I hate the freight costs that I purchase multiple cases at a time so they come via truck)....ink cost are almost nothing, transfer paper...what $ .10 a piece...and I sell them all day long at $16.00 each. Not making money...don't think so.

It is, in this business, like all others, a matter of knowing your products, knowing your customers, knowing your costs....and going after 'em!

I'm not saying sublimation is cheap but I am saying that if you work it right, it can be profitable. Not without it's challenges, that is for sure!

Now, if I could, I would print my own kiln fired decals and fire those mugs and make something that will be good when the Romans regain control....but for now, sublimation is the best solution I've found for personalized mugs. Sure better than that crap that has been (and still is) presented in the mall kiosks!

Doug


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## Double Tees (Jan 1, 2010)

Love all my conde products I get from them.


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## LoveLeothena (Sep 6, 2017)

Bumping this post back up, wondering if a new product has come out since this post is 7 years old. Is there now a product that works to make stuff able to be sublimated?


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