# Mug printing



## John Thomson (Mar 24, 2008)

I am new to sublimation printing but have been getting great results........my question is this....do you cool your mugs in water after printing? If so what is the benefit?......quicker to pack?

john


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## MaMaJean (May 22, 2008)

What are you printing with?


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## John Thomson (Mar 24, 2008)

Epson R285 ciss,dye sub ink.
results so far are good without cooling in water.....just curious as to any potential benefit.

John


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

If you go immediately to water from the press....you could get a cracked mug. The reason for the water is to stop the heat process...since dye sub reacts to heat, the longer the heat is there, it is sublimating a bit. I will normally pull the mug...take off the paper, set on counter..put next mug in the press and then put the mug in warm water


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## Dingbat (Jun 12, 2007)

If your mug breaks when you put it in water, you are not using good quality mugs. When I tape my transfer to the mug, I fold the end of the heat tape over about 1/4 of an inch, so I can quickly peel the paper off. I immediately dunk the mug in "room temperture" water and swish gently without touching my bucket. I can handle and wrap the finished product without waiting.


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## TVS (Jan 25, 2008)

I have found that cooling the mugs in watter right after taken out of mug press works a treat, and of about 5000 i`ve done i`ve never had any cracking or breaking of them ?
I also find that it helps the gas seal better on the mugs and also gives a bit better quality.
Something i have also done recently is when doing wow colour change mugs, i find puting a small drop, about a t-spoon full of vinager in the sink seals it well and propper and have got great results.
I read some were from an old factory sub system about the vinager and though what the hell and its never done any damage.


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## selzler (Apr 4, 2007)

I take the mug out of the press and straight into the water and then place a mug into the press then pull the mug from the water and remove the transfer. It speeds up the packaging and if a customer is waitting in the store or out at a show they want to get going fast. like it was said cheep mugs will break in about the last 10 years I maybe have one in a thousand break I by all my mugs from conde I have tryed other companys and had a bad problem with them.


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## John Thomson (Mar 24, 2008)

Thanks for the replies......I will give water cooling a go

john


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## thesignshop (Jun 24, 2008)

John Thomson said:


> I am new to sublimation printing but have been getting great results........my question is this....do you cool your mugs in water after printing? If so what is the benefit?......quicker to pack?
> 
> john


 Been printing mugs for several years and never used water to cool after cracking one with the change in temprature (How silly was that?) I use card board mug boxes which allows the mugs to cool, and enables me to sell without holding up the customers.


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## BigBear (Aug 15, 2007)

John Thomson said:


> I am new to sublimation printing but have been getting great results........my question is this....do you cool your mugs in water after printing? If so what is the benefit?......quicker to pack?
> 
> john


There are two potential benefits. Because the mug is so hot it is possible for the image to outgas or re-sublime. 

Because gases move up, this could cause a slight degradation in fine detail.

Second, is the fact that a good mug, without flaws, will not crack when subjected to water. If it would, I wanted it to crack with me, not when a customer was putting hot coffee in it.

Granted, the contraction stress of immersing a super-hot mug in warm water is much higher than pouring coffee into it.

However, in my old retail days, that didn't matter. A slight loss of profit was not as important as customer safety.

As an aside, I would like to encourage everyone to remember to not microwave new mugs and get liquids really hot.

New mugs have no scratches or blemishes on the inside. These "use marks" actually allow air bubbles to form and heat to escape.

Because new mugs have none, it is very difficult for air bubbles to form. If the liquid becomes hot enough that it should have boiled, but didn't (because of the lack of air bubbles), water surface tension can allow pressure to build up in the liquid.

When the unlucky person takes the hot mug out of the microwave, the cooler air and movement breaks the surface tension and the liquid can explode, like a miniature volcano.

Almost everyone knows not to boil liquids in a microwave, now you know why.

Sorry to get off the point. I've been trying to help folks most of my adult life and the habit is hard to break.

Everyone have a great day!


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## martinwoods (Jul 20, 2006)

We take our right from the press to water also and have never had a cracked mug, we get ours from conde and have always had great luck, very nice people there also.

Good luck, sublimated mugs are so nice.


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## conde tech (Nov 15, 2007)

The key to putting mugs in water to stop the cooling...is to make sure you use room temp water. Mugs will crack if you use cold water straight from tap water. When using the water coolong method....place mug in water with image still attached to mug.


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## jpkevin (Oct 22, 2007)

When I had my shop I started cooling mugs in warm water, and you can still sometimes hear slight cracking noises. One day I had a customer bring back a mug that they had been drinking coffee in, and there were some small cracks stained on the inside of the mug. From that day, I switched to cooling them on a freezer shelf, and never had a problem after that.


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## dim116 (Nov 27, 2006)

I take the transfer paper off & immediately put it in water slightly cooler than room temp.
After 4 or 5 mugs the water warms up, so I get new water.
I don't jam it in quickly but ease it in.
After I put the next mug in the press I take it out of the water & dry it off.

I have never had a cracked mug with this process.

Lar


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## sid (Oct 6, 2007)

We used to water cool mugs and found it worked very well however if you are doing a 100 or so mugs at a time you add a huge labor intensive step of having to dry them off by hand. We built a cooling station using wire racks and fans to cool mugs down. By the time 24 mugs come out of the oven the first set is ready to pack and ship.


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## PressForProfit (Jun 11, 2008)

sid said:


> We used to water cool mugs and found it worked very well however if you are doing a 100 or so mugs at a time you add a huge labor intensive step of having to dry them off by hand. We built a cooling station using wire racks and fans to cool mugs down. By the time 24 mugs come out of the oven the first set is ready to pack and ship.


Dear Sid,

I agree with you. In my shop we used baker's racks and aluminum trays with a fan mounted on the top blowing down. For a smaller setup, just place a small Walmart fan on the table and put the mug next to it. The mug will cool very quickly. Placing the mug on an aluminum baking sheet will also draw heat out of the mug.

For us the whole water thing with the bucket was extremely messy after a few dozen mugs...with not much gained.

We must have made more than 50,000 mugs in our shop over 10 years. Besides our little bucket experiment, not one was dipped in water after pressing. With the exception of one pallet of bad mugs, we never had a fading/bluring complaint.

Case in point: Mug conveyor ovens can have an after cooling section so the mugs are cool to the touch. They use forced air, not water to cool them.


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## mn shutterbug (Mar 19, 2009)

Rather than start a new thread, I'll ask on this one. I see many people use Conde mugs. Has anyone had any experience with the ones from Coastal? The conde mugs would run about $1.90 each with shipping, whereas the Coastal run under $1.50 with free shipping, if you order over $200 worth.


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## 123hopper1990 (Mar 28, 2009)

*Hi there, I was hoping you could help me as I am new to mug printing, I bought a Epson D120 printer with a CISS system and sublimation ink. Yesterday I set it all up and it was brilliant I made my first 3 mugs until I had to go out so I touched nothing I was gone for a hour, when I came back I made a new design and tried to print it it came out all wrong its now not printing blue or green. I have tried everything with the system e.g cleaning pipes making sure theres no blocks. I have done a head clean and nozzle checks I'm at a loss now can anyone help?*


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