Sublimation pricing

[Simon Kay]

We do a set of 4 for $60 Oz Dollars.
4 coasters for $28.

Unfortunately don’t get many orders of 50. 🙁

[Paul Rollason]

Cheers Scozzie

So that’s about £6 each for placemats

I wonder if I can charge the same in this country

Maybe £5 each for fifty

I dunno 😕

[Brian Curtis]

Hi Paul

There’s someone doing that sort of thing at Pool Market – I’ve got a price list at home, so I’ll let you know later on if you want. I can’t remember their name.

Brian

[Simon Kay]

Hey Paul,

I reckon 5 squid each is fair if they are getting 50.

Once you have got the design ready, the printing should be easy enough. Just make sure you leave a 5mm bleed around the edge as the place mats tend to grow slightly after pre-heating. Mind you some don’t so – go figure.

Some of our best results have come from placemats/clipboards but I have to warn you some of our worst disasters come from the same place. 😕

I dunno what it is. You seem to get a good batch of mats that work with no problem at all – great results, then next batch is completely pants. Orange peel everywhere. We reduced it a bit by not putting the teflon sheet over the top. I reckon it traps steam or dye moisture and causes the polmer coating to overheat and ‘orange peel’.

Have you tried the metal coasters yet? They are awesome in terms of clarity of image. Stick a cork backing on them and Bob’s your Auntie – instant coaster. 😀

Hope this helps.

Scoz

[Paul Rollason]

Cheers scozzie

We are just learning sublimation and I’ve wasted a few coasters over the last couple of day I can tell you. But we will get there, we always do.

We are having trouble with orange peel as well.

What sort of pressure do you use with coasters etc

paul r

[Michael Lafferty]

Doing some placemats at the moment, 40 @ £4 each. Normally I would charge around £4.50 – £5.00.

When printing, I lay the print face up, lay the printable side of placemat on the transfer paper and tape in place. Turn it over so the printable side is facing the heat press, then just cover with a sheet of ordinary A4 paper, I don’t bother with the silicon sheet. Works fine for me. Pressure is just less than what I use for t-shirts, just enough to close it using a clampress.

Main problem I had was not removing the protective coating from coasters and placemats 🙄

Cheers
Michael

[Brian Curtis]

Hi Paul

The company I was talking about are selling placemats at £5 each or sets of 4 with 4 coasters for £20.

Brian

[Paul Rollason]

Cheers Guys

I think about £4.99 each

quote :

Main problem I had was not removing the protective coating from coasters and placemats

Yeh I though of that but the coasters I have don’t have a protective coating.

Michael, do you know where I can get round placemats

Paul r

[Michael Lafferty]

Xpres do round fabric ones or The Transfer Press have round plastic ones.

I thought there was no coating on mine, till I picked at the edge and off it came. Is the surface you start to print on perfectly smooth ?

Michael

Sorry just read your message properly, I was talking about coasters not placemats 😳

[Simon Kay]

We use a sheet of butchers paper now instead of the teflon sheet.

Pressure as Michael said. Taping method also as Michael said.

Occasionaly we have problems with ghosting. Sometimes when we pick up the press the vacuum of air created shifts the transfer paper a little. Obviously it’s still hot and still doing it’s stuff and we think that’s when it ghosts the image. A real pain in the but after you’ve printed, lined up pressed and then finally wasted a placemat. One thing we are experimenting with is to spraymount the transfer paper to the substrate – not too much though 🙂 . This seems to ensure nice clean sharp images albeit a wee bit sticky but that washes off. Better than losing product.

As far as orange peel goes – I dunno. I can only put it down to bad batches or steaming or both. I have never had any kind of positive outcome when presenting the problem to our suppliers however you lot probably have a wider range of suppliers who compete with each other rather than a monopolistic enterprise 😮 .

Whatever. Good Luck.