mug press’s

[Alan Drury]

I’ve got a mug press for sale if your interested £350 + VAT it is a Europa Leisure/Jarin Industries HF2200
Alan D

[David_Evans]

just started mugs myself, ive gone down the sublimation route. For the basic set up an epson D88 will do, then the expensive bit, the ink, about £200 for the bulk feed system. Dont go for a cheap version of this (i learnt the hard way). According to xpres A4 sheet costs about 30p to produce and thats 3 mugs. All else you need is a mug press ranging from £150-£650.
Hope this is of some help

[Steve Dawson]

thanks guys , been looking into it today , and your right , the ink is the nasty one !! , for some reason i though you could use normal inkjet ink , although it seems you can with special paper , but the paper is very expensive compared to standard sublimation stuff…….

so i think the ink route is the one for me , £50 a shot though , and needing 6 for my epson r200 (already got a bulk system) , thats about 150 mugs before i start making a profit on a £150 press , Mmmmmmmmm

SD

[Dave Bruce]

Steve, hope the heat press is going well. I have the mug sleeves that you put in the oven, not actually used it yet, but a friend has been doing mugs with them for me and they turn out brilliant, much cheaper than an actual press.

At home at the mo so haven’t the details, if you are interested I will hunt them out.

[Steve Dawson]

Dave , i’m afraid i sold the press , it was great , dont get me wrong , but i had a very small decal to do one day , and the wife was ironing , nicked it and haven’t looked back since , think i just like the manual approach , get a better feel for what’s going on….

As for the wrap thing , sounds good , but i think it still needs sub ink doesn’t it , and at present i cant afford to plunge £300 on ink if i don’t sell too many…

Maybe somebody has some ink out there good for epson r200 i can get started with ?

(mod’s – feel free to move my question)

[Dave Bruce]

My friend used cartridges which he recond were economical, I will give him a call and get some details.

Dave

[chicksee]

I’m pretty sure you won’t get sublimation ink for a epson R200
You have to have a cetain model, I have a C86 and that’s ok, the sublimation cartridges for that are £30 each and it takes 4 cartridges.

[Lee Husselbury]

Hi,

We use the mug wraps that you put in the oven, 4-8 at a time in an oven is much quicker and very easy to use. No good for doing one or two.

Lee

[Lorraine Clinch]

I’ve had a customer in today, will be looking at having promotional mugs printed, probably in fair quantities, I guess, so wondering whether I should be looking to add this to the business, so am watching this thread re-develop with interest.

For those of you printing mugs already, do you have any advice, ie what not to buy, etc?

Is the profit margin good enough to justify the new expense of another heat press, sublimation printer etc? I would have added sublimation ages ago, if the t-shirts etc. weren’t so awful 😥

[chicksee]

Ive been doing mugs for about 2 years now and the best times are occasions, ie: Christmas / mothers day / fathers day / grandparents day etc etc, I sold a fair few the first year but this declines after you have sold to the bulk of people you know.
I sell mine for £7.50 each, they cost about £2 (perhaps a little more) each to make.
I have done a few promotional ones for company’s but you obviously reduce the price for bulk buyers.
You won’t lose money but don’t think you will retire on the profits 😛

[Steve Underhill]

Ok to put some answers to the questions,
You can get sublimation ink for an R220 not the 200

Sublimation cartridges are so much more expensive per ml than bulk feed you would probably need to sell mugs for the rest of your life to break even.

There is no way you can use any kind of normal ink to sublimate, its special ink that turns into a gas at a specified temperature, which then releases from the carrier paper then seals itself in the polyester coating on the substrate.

Get your ink from continuous ink, they do nice cheap ink, they aren’t allowed to advertise because of artaniums Microsoft type approach to patents and monopolies.
But you’re looking at about £35 including vat for 125ml instead of £60 for Artanium UV

I have to admit though mugs are not a large part of our income in fact theyre not even a small part of it

:lol1:

[Peter Normington]

We did mugs and promo stuff for a few years, we thought it would be a good add on to the signs. Sign a van for the local builder, and sell him a few mugs, and some t shirts, But most only wanted small quantities.

Its fine if you are specialising and doing reasonable numbers, but we found the time we spent to make mugs, t shirts etc. was not as profitable as cutting and sticking vinyl. so we sold the kit.
We also got people wanting one offs, but didnt want to pay the one off price, so again using valuable time explaining why we couldn’t just press a button and make one mug.
Like I said, fine if you specialise but we found it not as profitable as we hoped.

Peter

[Steve Underhill]

Its a mugs game

[Peter Normington]

😀 😀 😀

[Saph-D]

I print mugs and have two presses and a mug machine which can do four mugs or beer steins or dog bowls in fact a wide variety of other items using wraps which are basically a way of holding the image to the mug with some pressure.

Regarding dye sublimation ink – A company called Sawgrass in the States have the patent on the way in which dye sub inks are put into small format printers. The effect this has had on companies is that they are ONLY allowed to sell licensed inks.

There are still a few companies who are selling their own, a big word of warning here – Sawgrass have been active over the past years in the legal dept targeting those companies who are not complying with the ruling.

My advice would be to buy the licensed inks straight off because it won’t be too long before you find that you may have a problem obtaining the inks.

You can get a bulk feed system for about £199 plus vat including the inks which is a pretty mean initial payout but actually goes a long long way.

I would strongly suggest the mug machine which a company called Subli-Nation supply (which is only about 199.00 with four mug wraps if you expect to do more than one at a time) – or try out with a single wrap in your home oven to give you an idea. Or google for the other well known makes and see if anyone has a special offer on them. ( Jarin Europa mug press – George Knight are the two that spring to mind for me )

I’m not sure if we are allowed to offer this, but I would be happy to send you a printed transfer for anyone to have a go at pressing if you would like ( provided you get a mug wrap ).

Don’t go for a Chinese mug press from eBay – they seriously cause more problems than enough, with a lot of them ‘sparking’ and some catching fire.

I would also strongly suggest that you paid the extra £5 or £6 a box to get mugs which can go into a dishwasher as opposed to those which are dishwasher ‘safe’ that don’t crack but DO fade.

I sell a lot of mugs, if in large quantities I reduce the price down. Dye subbed mugs look superb, the colours are SO bright and ‘in your face’ even on full colour photographic images. I supply to a few well known companies as well as often doing a one off mug as a thank you to some – amazing how delighted they are to get them.

It’s also a great way to advertise yourself and your work if you give one as a gift with other printing orders – your name and details on one side, the clients on the other.

The dyes cost about 49.99 for 125ml regardless of where you purchase them usually, because they are all produced by the same company – these are the ArTanium inks I am talking about.

The most important aspect of dye sub printing is to ensure you get the colour profile installed properly and then it is SO simple. Of all of the dye sub market, I believe that the mug one is the best. No matter how ‘old hat’ it is, people still like to get them.

I might be a little odd, but I love mug printing 😛

ps dye sub mugs all the way for me – I wouldn’t consider any other kind even though I have the means to do pad printed ones.

Saph 🙂

[Nicola McIntosh]

i enjoyed that saph 😀 i dont have a clue about printing mugs 😕 😉

nik

[Lynn Normington]

we did try it for a while but wasn’t for us so don’t do it no more 😕

Lynn

[Steve Underhill]

Got my mug press from BMS, still working nicely after 18 months
Cost £300 approx.
Revolution and continuousink both still sell dye sub ink its not
Sawgrass artanium and its way cheaper,
Epson tried this "we own the patent" type rubbish 2 years ago with inkrite, jet tec etc, over their epson carts.
It hasnt worked and they still produce 3rd party ink in enormous volume so don’t expect to see the other dye sub ink manufacturers etc going anywhere quite just yet.