# My first Dye Sub project ever



## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

Ok, so here i am, about to put my very first ever dye sublimination project into the oven.. Its a pet bowl, and I am using a wrap for it.. 

The coastal business site said to put it in for 10 min at 400 degrees..

Here's my question, how long before i take off the wrap after the 10 minutes is up? 

What would happen if i left it in took long? 

And finally, can you put that SAME pet bowl into the over a second time if I decided I wanted some pictures on the back as well???


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## Teeser (May 14, 2008)

I've only done beer steins with wraps in the oven but you should remove the wrap and transfer right away and put it in cold water to set it. If you over cook the item the image will darken and get blurry. There was a recent thread about re-sublimating an item - http://www.t-shirtforums.com/dye-sublimation/t69849.html 
I've never recooked an item.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

I thought if you put ceramic in cold water after being hot it would crack??


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

alright, well my oven just beeped and i took the item out and removed the wrap right away and the image was REALLY faded looking.. The image on the paper looked just fine, a little pale, but from what i have read, that is somewhat normal.

Then i thought, maybe i printed on the wrong side of the paper?? is there a right/wrong side? 

I have the image right paper


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## Teeser (May 14, 2008)

On our paper there is a right side. We print on the whiter side. You need to cool down the bowl,mugs etc or the image will bleed. I tried cooling mugs on a rack and ruined them. Did you have the wrap really tightened down?


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

the wrap is made specifically for that item, and yes, it was REALLY tight. I didnt print on the whiter side though.. The paper didnt come with any instructions and the website we bought it from didnt have any, and at first look, they didnt even look different. 

When you say you have to cool it, do you cool it with the wrap on? because you said take the wrap off right away, and i have a hard time believing that you just toss the thing in cold water right after it was out of the oven and DONT have things crack.


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## martinwoods (Jul 20, 2006)

when we do sublimation we take it out and place in warm water until it cools and they come out great.
I am sure you did get sublimation transfer paper but it doesn't hurt to ask anyways.
I have not used coastal for sublimation, I always use conde but I am sure that they would have sold you the sublimation transfers and not inkjet.

Good luck and keep practicing


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

yes, i got the correct paper, and coastal even called me when they saw my order and corrected a few things that i bought that would not work for what they assumed was my setup. So they were VERY helpful in making sure that i had the correct items. 

THIS IS THE PAPER I USED

And ibought some of the pre-filled cartridges for ink. Artanium UV ink. (seen here)

I am using a C88 with the color correction ICC Profile

the thing is, the image and lines were not blurry at all, they were just pale, like the ink didnt transfer all the way.. Maybe more time is needed next time?


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## martinwoods (Jul 20, 2006)

well at least they made sure everything was correct which is great.
I am not sure about the wraps, we use the mug press and I have not done any dog bowls but a friend of mine does a lot of them, maybe she will see the post and be able to advise. If not I am sure someone will know the answer.

Good luck on the sublimation stuff, it is really nice.


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## martinwoods (Jul 20, 2006)

lindsayanng said:


> yes, i got the correct paper, and coastal even called me when they saw my order and corrected a few things that i bought that would not work for what they assumed was my setup. So they were VERY helpful in making sure that i had the correct items.
> 
> THIS IS THE PAPER I USED
> 
> ...


Those links did not work for me.


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## martinwoods (Jul 20, 2006)

They must be having issues with the site because I went there and still cannot get in.
Must be down.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

Yea... I was REALLY excited to try, and i have nothing but good things to say about coastal, they were really helpful to me as a complete newbie. 

I am just completely befuddled. I would really be interested to know if people who use a wrap on those things, if they change the settings a little (higher heat or more time) OR if it was because i printed on the wrong side of the paper.. 

I emailed coastal to see what they might have to say too.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

WOW.. I guess they are having issues.. I literally was JUST there, and it ran a tad slow, but i got all the pages up. If your around, check again in 15 minuites.. usually things like that happy for just a few minutes because of server issues.


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## martinwoods (Jul 20, 2006)

since the bowl doesn't look good anyway, maybe you could try printing on a nother piece on the right sie and put it back in the oven and see if the colors are brighter at least that way you do not ruin another bowl.
Just a thought.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

Thast what i'm doing now  

I'm going to print the other side of the paper and maybe add 2 minutes to the time?


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## Teeser (May 14, 2008)

lindsayanng said:


> When you say you have to cool it, do you cool it with the wrap on? because you said take the wrap off right away, and i have a hard time believing that you just toss the thing in cold water right after it was out of the oven and DONT have things crack.


The images will ghost if you don't cool it in water. The site we use for our supplies says the bowls should be cooked for 15 min @ 400 degree. That was the time we used for the steins and it worked great.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

ok then, i will up the time.. So teeser, you put your bowl in WARM water then?


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## Teeser (May 14, 2008)

The instructions on the site do say 'room temp' water. We only have a cold water tap at the warehouse which is why I was trying to air cool our mugs because I hate reaching in to get them. I would use warm water if I could get it.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

how do they not break?!

On another note, the ICC profile isnt working exactly right.. I didnt do much blue in the other one, but this time i printed and it was supposed to be a BRIGHT teal-ish blue, but i just printed it out from my eposon and it looks greyish blue.. VERY dull!!

I must have done something wrong with setting up the profile???


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

well, the second round is cooking now, but i have to figure out why my profile isn't printing the blues correctly. 

it is also showing wrong with certain pinks because of the fact that the blue is off..


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## Teeser (May 14, 2008)

I think glass in general is more susceptible to breaking due to temp changes. I've read that the glass products need to be left design up to air cool instead of submerging them. I guess the vapors disperse away from the glass preventing the ghosting. The ghosting on my mugs went towards the top with only a little color bleeding out to the sides.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

yoo hoo!! It worked a LOAD better this time!! The image is VERY clear and all of the lines are clean!!

There is still the image with the colors not printed to what i see on my screen, which sucks, but atleast i know that everything works!!!

There also was one other issue that i saw that I am going to try and fix.. There were black speckles all around one of the images. I wasnt sure if it was on the product, or on the paper, but when i went and looked at the paper, there were black dots on there as well.. I am wondering if i need to clean the heads, or realign the heads. 

I did also read that if the print head touches the paper, that it can cause an issue. I am going to clean the heads and realign i think.> I just dont want to waste the ink!!

I still dont get how your ceramic stuff doesnt crack in COLD water.. I cracked a ceramic coffee mug (just one i was using ) just from putting boiling water into it, then dumping it out and putting normal temp tap water into it!! And it definitely wasnt heated all the way through

p.s. I DID put my bowl in WARM water though..


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

uploading pictures now


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

ok soo here they are..

Now , i was completely lazy and used iphoto photobooth to take my pictures instead of my totally awesome camera because i didnt want to find the cable. Oh yea, and BECAUSE i used the photobooth, the text is going to LOOK backwards, i promise you its not. I DID remember to mirror my graphics!! its just how it takes pictures..



ANYWAYS.. 

MY SAD FIRST ATTEMPT

MY MUCH BETTER SECOND ATTEMPT (p.s. if you look in the background of this one, you will see my stupid husband's face)


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## Teeser (May 14, 2008)

Not knowing what the colors are supposed to be, I'd say it looks perfect . There is good color transfer and saturation. We had trouble with the colors too. We printed off a color palette and transferred it to mugs so we knew where we were starting from. We've never gotten the grey we wanted. We've resigned ourselves to whatever grey comes out. 

As an owner of 4 cats I have to warn you that sublimation printers seem to be magnets for fur. We occasionally get ink drops and find stray cat hairs on the print heads are the culprit! We have to do a head cleaning every time before printing.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

Ahah!! just before i printed, my cats were climbing all over the printer.. Of coarse they were, it was something new in the room!

With 6 cats here, i will have to make a complete ziplock bag to encase my entire work area in

you didnt laugh at my husbands stupid face


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## Teeser (May 14, 2008)

I have a husband too. I've found that laughing at their antics just encourages them


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## clayboyrat (Dec 1, 2008)

I use trupix paper and print on the whiter side. I use a wrap on the mugs at 400 for 15min and they have been comming out good. I just let them air cool with the wrap and paper off. Though am only on my 15th mug. I had 2 come out bad at first. I was having troubles with my ICC profile. Witch kinda makes me think your not useing your ICC profile. I would look into that. Because after I got mine working right the printing was alot darker then when I was not useing it. So here is a link that cervantez gave me when I was having troubles PC and MAC ICC Profile Setup Instructions for sublimation I also had to set my screen to Adobe1998 rgb . Hope this helps


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

well, that link didnt help me too much.. they didnt have my printer to choose nor my operating system (i have a mac OSX) 

HOWEVER, i got complete install instructions from conde, and i have actually used profiles before for printing, so it wasnt that new to me.. There was one point in the instructions, however, that i did not have the option for in my version of photoshop..

The people at Coastal said that I could call them if i had issues installing it. They said there is someone there who has installed and helped other people install the profile for macs many times..

I just cant imagine what i might have been missing.. it was all there


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## clayboyrat (Dec 1, 2008)

Well maybe your not missing anything at all. I was just guessing about the Icc cos that was my problem. But once i got it working my prints were alot darker on the paper.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

i think i figured it out.. my monitor was not set to RGB1998 and when i set it that way, the image looked just as it was printed.. I just have to remember to switch it over when i do my illustrations and back when i do all my other computer work.


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## clayboyrat (Dec 1, 2008)

Yes thats what I was talking about. But so hard to explain. By the way I just did 2 mugs and let them cool with the wrap on . Perfect. Was hopping for some ghosting to see what it would be like. No such luck


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

I was thinking that leaving the wrap on would be beneficial, but I'm going with those who have more experience than me and am just going to take the wrap off as soon as its out of the oven.. Its hard to do without burning the crap out of myself, but i figured it out the second time


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## clayboyrat (Dec 1, 2008)

Ove Gloves is a must if your useing wraps. They work great cept I tape my print on my mugs and have to leave a tab on the tape by folding back on its self so I can peel it with my gloves on. Then I just let them sit on the top of my kitchen stove to cool.


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

OOOH the tape tab is a good idea.. I taped my print onto the mug too.. and peeling it off burnt my finger tips..

A trip to the AS SEEN ON TV STORE might be a good idea


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## clayboyrat (Dec 1, 2008)

I got my ove gloves off of e-bay


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

I bought some heat resistant gloves at local hardware...but I have seen the ove glove at Walgreens


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

sounds like a stop off before i make it home from work. Good idea. You guys are soo innovative


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## oneeyedjack (Mar 7, 2007)

To cool mugs we use water as hot as the tap will get.Have had mugs crack using luke warm water so we use just hot.Instead of taping whick can leave marks you should try adhesive spray like wilflex or conde has its own spray butits pretty expensive compared to others.


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## Cutting_Edge (Jun 30, 2006)

*I used to use hot water in the mugs to cool them down......UNTIL...I got a complaint from a customer saying that they were leaking, but couldn't find the cause of the leak (nothing visable to the regular eye).....made a quick call to Marck and Assoc.....they told me by putting the water in the mugs, I was cracking the glaze on the mug and causing the leakage.....*
*Their suggestion to solve this was to "cook" the mugs as usual, take them from the oven and put them on a heat resistant surface (I use a wood cooling rack) to cool for around 10 minutes....then remove the wrap and paper and let them cool naturally to help protect the glazing on the mugs.*
*Since doing this, I have not had one return for leakage.....over 10 months ago and 100s of mugs later.*
*Oh, and are you printing in RGB colors?*
*Hope this helps you.....*
*Margaret*
*Cutting Edge*


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## Git-R-Done (Dec 5, 2006)

Do yourself a favor and write down all temp and time settings on the substraights you are doing. What you see on your screen is not what you get on your final project. You can download color palettes from artanium, or they should be on a disk you recieved when you bought your system. Print these palettes on all types of substraights since the colors will vary on diff. types. Then you just match the color to the project your doing and your colors will always be what you set the rgb values at. 

On mugs, me using a press I do 390 deg. at 3 mins. I remove the artwork as soon as it comes out and air cool with a fan.
T-shirts, dash plaque material, plaques I run 390 deg at 40 sec.

I went through all this stuff when i first started
and back then i tried what everyone said and was going in circles. My sub business is very good now with great results, altho recently i upgraded to a epson 4880 which began another learning curve, but it is smoke'n now.

Good luck!


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## lindsayanng (Oct 3, 2008)

Cutting_Edge, that was my thoughts.. Water, no matter how hot, would be slightly dangerous. I did just go a single mug at 400degrees for 10 minutes. I took the wrap right off, waiting 15 minutes and took the paper and tape off.. Maybe i can lower to time and i wont get that weird gree smudge from the tape?


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

I always use 4.5 or 5 min at 400 F and never have a problem with mugs


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