# Sublimation ink



## PunkPrintz (Feb 6, 2011)

Has anyone ever heard of or used GerCutter inks?


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

Nope...it is certainly not a mainstream ink in usa


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

One good way to at least get a feel if they are legit or not is to contact them and request they do a sample print for you. Send them a file in the format they would request and have them send back the finished item. This way you can see first hand the quality of the end product you would be making. If they are not willing to do a sample print for you - RUN!


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

This appears to be a new operation in USA with offices in San Diego with other offices in south america we will see how saw grass reacts. At this point I would not buy


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## PunkPrintz (Feb 6, 2011)

Since I am new to this and doing this from home, I am looking for the cheapest way! Last week I purchased 4 100ml bottles of this ink (CYMK) and have not been successful. They only cost $30 for the 4 bottles; therefore, I am not out any large amount of money. I will be contacting the company this week to get more detailed information. The only item I print on is ceramic tiles! I guess I have have to see what they say on Monday. 

I am pressing at 400F for 360secs at medium pressures...... Does this sound correct??


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## texasjack49 (Aug 4, 2008)

PunkPrintz said:


> Since I am new to this and doing this from home, I am looking for the cheapest way! Last week I purchased 4 100ml bottles of this ink (CYMK) and have not been successful. They only cost $30 for the 4 bottles; therefore, I am not out any large amount of money. I will be contacting the company this week to get more detailed information. The only item I print on is ceramic tiles! I guess I have have to see what they say on Monday.
> 
> I am pressing at 400F for 360secs at medium pressures...... Does this sound correct??


 Way too little data or information. What kind of tile are you using? where was it purchased? Why are you pressing for 360 sec, where is your instructions coming from?
Since you are buying bulk ink I assume you have a ciss, what printer are you using. 
And last, who's transfer paper are you using and what type is it?


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## PunkPrintz (Feb 6, 2011)

I am using an Epson WF40 (due to a warranty exchange from my WF30). The tiles I ordered from bestblanks and my paper is from coastal business. I am pressing for 360secs because that is what I was told when I spoke with bestblanks a few months ago. Do you have a better way?!?! I am up for anything!?!


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

Jack is correct. We need more info. For a start you need an Epson printer, sublimation paper, polymer coated tiles.... Not tiles from Lowes or Home Depot...press at about 400 degrees for 4 or 5 minutes or so


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

Tiles are not the easiest nor the least expensive thing to be testing ink. Get a scrap shirt or fabric and start there. Once you have your colors figured out move to tiles.


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## oldscot (Nov 18, 2006)

PunkPrintz said:


> Has anyone ever heard of or used GerCutter inks?


It apparently is sold by Gercutter in San Diego.
The parent company is in South America. Don't know how they can sell the ink without violating the Sawgrass patent unless that is expiring now. I will order the four color 100ml sublimation bulk set thru Amazon for about $52.00 including shipping if the Chinese inks I have coming in soon don't do well. I will let you know about print quality if I do get the Gercutter inks. I did e-mail Gercutter about the availability of a profile for use with Epson printers and am waiting for an answer.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

oldscot said:


> It apparently is sold by Gercutter in San Diego.
> The parent company is in South America. *Don't know how they can sell the ink without violating the Sawgrass patent unless that is expiring now*. I will order the four color 100ml sublimation bulk set thru Amazon for about $52.00 including shipping if the Chinese inks I have coming in soon don't do well. I will let you know about print quality if I do get the Gercutter inks. I did e-mail Gercutter about the availability of a profile for use with Epson printers and am waiting for an answer.


The Sawgrass '907 patent involves putting a chemical into the sub ink to keep it from "sublimating" inside thermal print heads (Canon Bubblejet and HP) which use heat to transport the inks thru the print heads. 

Piezo heads use electrical charge to transport the inks, and have no heat involved. As such, the problem SG was trying to remedy as descibed in their patent was not necessary in a piezo printer(Epson and Ricoh).

Texas Original Graphics sucessfully argued the heat in the print head issue and forced SG to settle out of court. 

The patent is not for sublimation ink, it is for a formulation of sub ink to eliminate premature heating of the sub dyes.

The SG patent is valid (within its claims) for just over 3 more years now.


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## joemsewi (Aug 20, 2008)

To Oldscot: I am interested in hearing about your experience with the Chinese inks or with the Gercutter inks. Any information would be appreciated.


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## oldscot (Nov 18, 2006)

joemsewi said:


> To Oldscot: I am interested in hearing about your experience with the Chinese inks or with the Gercutter inks. Any information would be appreciated.


Hello, the Chinese ink I got was not compatible in color brilliance or quality as compared to sawgrass inks and was not acceptable. There is about a dozen Chinese companies making sublimation inks so hopefully other Chinese inks will be tried and reported on in these forums. Won't get a chance to run tests on the Gercutter inks for a while as our main business is screen printing and have not decided whether we want to get back into sublimation again after 5 years.


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## uncletee (Feb 25, 2007)

for tiles 6 min about right, always at 400 degrees. there are alot of inks out there, expire sawgrass


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## sunny09 (Jun 8, 2010)

yes, i know the sublimation ink,it is used for dye-su, it is widely used on doing the transfer on mug,tshirt,plate ,metal board.and so on.But it is normal use in Epson printer.Other printer is not good to use sublimation.Because the printer head will block up the nozzle


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

oldscot said:


> Hello, the Chinese ink I got was not compatible in color brilliance or quality as compared to sawgrass inks and was not acceptable. There is about a dozen Chinese companies making sublimation inks so hopefully other Chinese inks will be tried and reported on in these forums. Won't get a chance to run tests on the Gercutter inks for a while as our main business is screen printing and have not decided whether we want to get back into sublimation again after 5 years.


Did the vendor provide a ICC/ICM profile? Without that color brillance or quality would be difficult to difficult to evaluate.

If I used SG inks without color management I would come to the same conclusion, not acceptable.


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## oldscot (Nov 18, 2006)

mgparrish said:


> Did the vendor provide a ICC/ICM profile? Without that color brillance or quality would be difficult to difficult to evaluate.
> 
> If I used SG inks without color management I would come to the same conclusion, not acceptable.


Very few of the Chinese manufacturers of sublimation inks supply profiles altho several of the Korean manufacturers do. When I started sublimating years ago, I used the Rotech Inks. Altho they supplied a profile, some colors were not accurate. I started to use the color calibration method of color selection. I went into Corel Draw and made up about 75 little squares representing various colors. For instance 10 of those squares would represent blues from light to dark. These 75 squares would be sublimated onto a mug (or t-shirt, license plate, etc) A corresponding sheet was printed showing the CMYK mix of each color. For instance, on of the popular light blues I use for drop shadows is C-72, M-0, Y-9, K-0. I have customers who are very fussy about colors so I just let them pick the colors they want from the sample sublimated item and thats great-they won't come back and say, "I don't like that color". With Artanium inks the black is set at C-0, M-0,Y-0, K-100. This gives a great dense black. With the Chinese ink at the same setting, the black is not as dense. The denseness of an sublimation ink is determined by the amount of pigment used. For instance, the J-Tek black inks come in three blacks, a regular black, an extra black, and an absolute black. The extra black has more pigmentation than the regular black and the absolute black has even more. Many of the Chinese inks do not have a lot of pigmentation so are not as brilliant or dense as the Sawgrass or Artanium inks. If Sawgrass or Artanium inks were not around for comparison the Chinese inks would be Ok. There are several things one can do if they are using a black that is not as dense as they like. One can try a mix of C-40, M-30, Y-20, K-100. Also certain inks can have their brilliance increased by adjusting the brightness, contrast, and saturation settings in their printer software. If you change inks, it is necessary to setup color calibrated sublimated samples for that particular ink.


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## ddante (Aug 2, 2011)

anybody has used Manukian inks on Epson?


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

oldscot said:


> Very few of the Chinese manufacturers of sublimation inks supply profiles altho several of the Korean manufacturers do. When I started sublimating years ago, I used the Rotech Inks. Altho they supplied a profile, some colors were not accurate. I started to use the color calibration method of color selection. I went into Corel Draw and made up about 75 little squares representing various colors. For instance 10 of those squares would represent blues from light to dark. These 75 squares would be sublimated onto a mug (or t-shirt, license plate, etc) A corresponding sheet was printed showing the CMYK mix of each color. For instance, on of the popular light blues I use for drop shadows is C-72, M-0, Y-9, K-0. I have customers who are very fussy about colors so I just let them pick the colors they want from the sample sublimated item and thats great-they won't come back and say, "I don't like that color". With Artanium inks the black is set at C-0, M-0,Y-0, K-100. This gives a great dense black. With the Chinese ink at the same setting, the black is not as dense. The denseness of an sublimation ink is determined by the amount of pigment used. For instance, the J-Tek black inks come in three blacks, a regular black, an extra black, and an absolute black. The extra black has more pigmentation than the regular black and the absolute black has even more. Many of the Chinese inks do not have a lot of pigmentation so are not as brilliant or dense as the Sawgrass or Artanium inks. If Sawgrass or Artanium inks were not around for comparison the Chinese inks would be Ok. There are several things one can do if they are using a black that is not as dense as they like. One can try a mix of C-40, M-30, Y-20, K-100. Also certain inks can have their brilliance increased by adjusting the brightness, contrast, and saturation settings in their printer software. If you change inks, it is necessary to setup color calibrated sublimated samples for that particular ink.


I understand the concept of printing swatches, I do this even with a good profile. However, this is beyond tedious (swatches) if you do photography images and not vector. Swatches works best with vector as it is easy to select and assign "fill" to the object. Bitmap photos it is not impossible, just very tedious since you need to use the "magic wand" or other similar tool or method to select pixels, and not objects.

I prefer swatches working in vector ... even with a good profile, but I also do a lot of "photo novelty" jobs as well.

Anyway, my point really for the gentleman posting was how could he determine the ink color quality was no good if he didn't use a profile?


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## lotsadogs (May 4, 2008)

I just received Gercutter inks, CISS, Epson Workforce30 printer and compatible paper as a gift (after my Ricoh died). Haven't set it up yet, but I will report back as soon as I do. the setup was sold by Amazon, and is amazingly inexpensive. I don't know how to set up my color profile yet, though. Tried registering at their website, but having difficulty because they registered me in spanish instead of english. I hope to get it up and running soon because if sublimation is acceptable with this setup, I want to buy more ink before Sawgrass pounces!


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## lotsadogs (May 4, 2008)

Finally got the Gercutter inks up and running in my Epson Workforce30. Got the color profile from Gercutter (the e-mail addy comes with the ink - don't bother with the websute). The paper I got with the setup did not work at all, no matter what I tried. I finallly found some old paper from Conde and tried that with EXCELLENT results on a t-shirt scrap. Washed twice, looks the same. Now to try a mug or tile.

At the price of $56 for a complete set of inks, Gercutter seems to be the way to go!


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## jmatson (Nov 11, 2011)

anyone used anything for the Ricoh printers? I looked on ebay found a person selling 4 120ml bottles with suringe and reset tool for 200.00


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## mmaust007 (Mar 30, 2012)

lotsadogs said:


> Finally got the Gercutter inks up and running in my Epson Workforce30. Got the color profile from Gercutter (the e-mail addy comes with the ink - don't bother with the websute). The paper I got with the setup did not work at all, no matter what I tried. I finallly found some old paper from Conde and tried that with EXCELLENT results on a t-shirt scrap. Washed twice, looks the same. Now to try a mug or tile.
> 
> At the price of $56 for a complete set of inks, Gercutter seems to be the way to go!



Just wanted to see if I went about getting the profile the right way. I called the number in San Diego and was told to email sales[USER=170815]@ger[/USER]cutter.us to ask for the WF 30 ICC Profile.

Was that the same email you used? and I have to ask if the profile allowed your blues to print blue and not with a purple hue to them. I tried to use another ICC profile to see if I could get it to work for the short term but no dice.

Thanks,

Marty


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## tallcotton (May 4, 2008)

lotsadogs said:


> Finally got the Gercutter inks up and running in my Epson Workforce30. Got the color profile from Gercutter (the e-mail addy comes with the ink - don't bother with the websute). The paper I got with the setup did not work at all, no matter what I tried. I finallly found some old paper from Conde and tried that with EXCELLENT results on a t-shirt scrap. Washed twice, looks the same. Now to try a mug or tile.
> 
> At the price of $56 for a complete set of inks, Gercutter seems to be the way to go!


Lorrie, I tried to PM you but it says your box is full. Could you let me know if you still like the gercutter inks.


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## MusicMan59 (Oct 27, 2011)

Might be in the wrong section of the board but I'll ask it here any way.

Would Dye sub ink bought for an Epson Stylus 9000 be compatable with a desktop printer (Epson Office T30 with cis) ?

I can purchase at a bargain price if compatable

Cheers


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## cplanie (Mar 28, 2012)

I am having issues with my blues. I have been using Gercutter inks for a while and use the wf30/wf1100 sawgrass Powerdriver profiles. They have been working great, however, I had to reinstall my wf1100 printer and used the same PowerDriver 1100 color profile. It now comes out purple/reddish color. So, I uninstalled and reinstalled the PowerDriver color profile. The regisration message said it was already registered. But it still comes out purplish. Now, the same inks on my wf30 come out correctly. I believe the registration is the key to the colors looking correct, but since it wont uninstall, I cant re-install it. So I need a different way add a profile for my sub ink. Any ideas please?


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## pisquee (Jan 8, 2012)

You could get a custom ICC profile made, which will be tuned to your specific printer and inks, rather than a generic Sawgrass profile, which would give you much more accurate colours.


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## skdave (Apr 11, 2008)

Wow !! All this to save .50 for a transfer.


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## pisquee (Jan 8, 2012)

Depends on how big the transfers you are doing are as to how much per transfer you save, and how often you print transfer, as to how quickly the savings add up, but I know that the price I pay per litre of ink, is less than what most people pay for 100ml of Sawgrass ink, even with £20 to get a custom ICC made, I am still saving a fortune... We do large format printing onto textiles, as well as the usual mugs etc, so paying £60 for a thimble of Sawgrass inks doesn't make sense.


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## skdave (Apr 11, 2008)

pisquee said:


> Depends on how big the transfers you are doing are as to how much per transfer you save, and how often you print transfer, as to how quickly the savings add up, but I know that the price I pay per litre of ink, is less than what most people pay for 100ml of Sawgrass ink, even with £20 to get a custom ICC made, I am still saving a fortune... We do large format printing onto textiles, as well as the usual mugs etc, so paying £60 for a thimble of Sawgrass inks doesn't make sense.


 
I know buying transfers are not for everyone, for all kind of reasons. But for 90% it saves money and alot of hassle. Sizes always matters. Anyone using a small format will save tons of money buying transfers. For .50 you can get 4-6 mugs for .50 6 i phones transfers for .50. 
If you have wide format printing you should print your owe.


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## Charms4all (Jan 29, 2007)

Lotsadogs
hi there i saw your post about the gercutter inks i have a question are they vibrant. does the red print true red and black print true black? what paper do u use , and the settings? color profile??
looking to do more sublimation work, but shy away cuz my colors arnt really good with the ink i have
thanks for your help
jess


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

realize that the brand of ink is only one part of the equation when it comes to colors.

You can have the highest quality ink on the market but without a matching ICC profile you have nothing.

Your color issues may have nothing to do with your current ink and everything to do with your profile and printing options not set correctly.


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## Charms4all (Jan 29, 2007)

how would you go about making your own color profile. and finding what settings to set your printer..i have tried to contact the ink supplier for one, but have not gotten a reply a long time ago. so i am on the hunt to DIY
thanks
jess


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

Creating color profiles are not something one can do without the right tools. There is a process where you can send off a printed sheet and have someone create it for you.

You can also post what printer/ink etc you are using and maybe someone here already has a profile/settings you can use.


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## Charms4all (Jan 29, 2007)

right now i am using an epson rx620 printer for my 1400 broke a while back. the inks.. i got from outac overseas. who would you send the print to to get a profile made?


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## freebird1963 (Jan 21, 2007)

do a google search and you will find lots of companies that do them.
You can buy the hardware to also make your own.
I had a bookmark for a lady, Kathy I think was the name that did them but can't find it. You dl some software from her and run some things and then send the results to her. Had good reviews.

My understanding is that the ICC profile made is good for the papers you use now and the monitor too and making changes to them could upset the profile and new ones being have to be made.


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## Charms4all (Jan 29, 2007)

I have tried to contact cathy's profiles, with no luck anyone else out there that can do one? I use corel 11


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## GordonM (May 21, 2012)

You might try this fellow: profilesbyrick.com

I've not used his services, but the price sounds reasonable. You'll need to email him to ask if he can do a non-paper substrate. While there are ways to activate sub ink into paper, the resulting profile is not exact for sublimated substrates that are shiny. A piece of sublimated FRP or aluminum is better, but not all profile makers have the kind of equipment to use non-paper targets.


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## particleman (Nov 27, 2012)

That price does sound reasonable. I'm new to sublimation but have been in the sign business for a while. For wide format printers we used an i1 profiler. They can be had on ebay for $500+. These are precision color reading instruments aka (spectrophotometer). You also need another piece of software that actually generates the ICC. There are lots of programs that do this and can talk to the i1. We used profile wizard digi. However, most are not cheap. i1 is probably the most common along with the brand name xrite or Gretag Macbeth (if you're searching). As people have mentioned they have a lot of applications outside of just wide format printers, we could use the same instrument to profile our monitors. 

We always profiled to the media we printed on but sublimation is a bit different, you would want to profile based on the item you were sublimating. So for instance a FRP license plate would in theory need a different profile than a mouse pad. Other factors that others have mentioned is the paper settings on your print driver (this affects the ink density), the paper type and the ambient temperature. 

Once you have the equipment and software the process is pretty simple. Print the target swatch file with all profiles OFF then scan the results using the i1 back into your profile generating software. You can adjust the file manually if needed. The ICC is output and ready to go.

Coming from the wide format world to sublimation is a little foreign since most of the time we found that creating our own media profiles to be vastly better than "canned" profiles.


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