Frequently Asked Questions
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Do you have a price list of your sublimation products?
Yes, if you type "price list" in the search field you will be taken right there.
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What is the cost of printing with sublimation ink?
This is always a difficult question to answer, but this may provide some guidance when printing with the D120 A4 printer. This guide includes the cost of paper as well and is take from Sawgrass Technologies website...
http://sawgrasseurope.indigofiles.com/technical_support/costs/Epson_D120_Cost_Per_Print_P.pdf
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Will a continuous printing system work out cheaper? (Called an EasyFlow System)
The data below refers to the D88 printer, but the principle is the same for the Epson B40W, B1100 and the Photo 1400.
Yes there is a substantial saving on inks. With the continuous ink system you get 125ml of each colour ink and the ink is much cheaper per ml when bought in this form rather than prefilled in a cartridge. Our systems come ready primed and all you have to do is insert the
cartridges, connect one end of the tubes to the bottles and start printing. When you need more ink, simply unscrew the cap of the bottle and inject more ink into the EasyFlow container. We supply ink in 125ml, 250ml and 500ml. Look at the cost comparison above to see the difference in printing costs between cartridges and the bulk feed system. -
Can I only print onto polyester garments?
The sublimation ink bonds with polyester, but the garment doesn't have to be 100% polyester. We would recommend a high polyester component for best results. Sublimation t-shirts for example are cotton t-shirts with a microweave of polyester in the upper layer of the fabric to enable the inks to bond permanently and vibrantly. We do offer a paper for printing onto cotton products, but this is for use with a colour laser printer and is not the same as sublimation.
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Can I only print onto white T-shirts and polo shirts with sublimation ink?
The sublimation process works best on white or light colour garments. It will not work if you try to print a yellow onto a black T-shirt as you simply will not see the printed item. You cannot print in white ink so you cannot print white text onto a dark garment. There are specialist papers that allow light colours to be transferred to dark garments and these transfer the white of the paper onto the final product. The downside of this is that is difficult to cut out complex
patterns to avoid transferring lots of whiteness of the paper as well as the image. This tends to work best when you have a square, rectangular or straight edged image that you are transferring. The white of the paper will sit on top of the fabric and not inside the fabric like sublimation ink. -
I want to print light colours onto dark garments - what other systems are available?
Assuming you want to print white lettering onto a black T-shirt then sublimation is not the way forward. To do this you would need to consider using either flock (a material that has a slightly raised soft feel to it) or flex (a smooth material) or other type of materials that can be cut using a cutter (a printer that uses a blade instead of an ink cartridge) to cut out the shape of the letters or image. This is then applied onto the garment with a heat press. Flock is a fabric that
has a brushed finish so you can feel the softness of it when it is adhered to the garment, whereas other materials, such as flex, will lie flat on the garment and would be smooth to the touch. These materials are washable, ironable and permanent when applied to the garments and can be applied to 100% cotton garments as well as other blends of material.
A cutter to start you off on this process will start at -
What methods of printing to clothing are there?
Sublimation printing will ONLY transfer to polyester. Many sublimation t-shirts are white with a polyester microweave in the upper layer of the t-shirt to allow the sublimation ink to transfer.
Most sublimation t-shirts are white as you can't print white ink with sublimation so you can't print onto dark t-shirts unless you print onto a white thin sheet of material that can be pealed and stuck to a t-shirt (anything that is transparent in the picture will be white due to the white thin pealable material you're using.
Cotton t-shirts cannot be printed onto with sublimation. There are other ways - the cheap approach uses an inkjet printer printing onto a clear material that will crack and peal after a few washes so is only good as a one off promotional use. The colour laser printer options allow you to print full colour onto white/ light coloured t-shirts but these "stick" to the outside of the t-shirt and there is a feel to the shirt where there is any clear parts of the logo/ picture. You can also print onto a white thin material much the same as sublimation and stick this to the outside of the t-shirt and then there is WOW7.1 but the only thing close to Direct to Garment printing without spending -
What is the 12 month warranty on RN coated products?
We are the first company in the UK (possibly Europe) to offer a 12 month dishwasher
safe warranty on our RN coated products which include the European Mugs, 11oz
Mugs, El Grande Mugs, Beer Steins, 11oz Frosted Glass Mugs, Sparta Mugs, Bone
China Mugs, Child Mugs, 17oz and 10oz Latte Mugs and even the Money Boxes
(although we don't envisage these going into a dishwasher!). This warranty means
that you provide your customers with a complete dishwasher safe guarantee, backed
up by us through extensive testing over a number of years. We guarantee the image
will not deteriorate on our RN coated products so long as you print them in accordance
with the temperature and time recommendations we provide and use genuine
Sawgrass sublimation inks.
The RN coating is so good that this coating has been independently tested to the
equivalent of 1000 cycles in a dishwasher without any visible change in the quality of
the image.
Our RN coated mugs have been repeatedly washed in domestic dishwashers using a
variety of dishwasher tablets including the Finish PowerBall tablet. We have performed
extensive wash tests as have our customers hence our no quibble guarantee that is
now provided as standard on all our RN coated products. You will see a 'wash
warranty logo' when you buy the RN coated products online.
The small print - wash warranty applies only to RN coated products purchased from
BMS Ltd, proof of purchase required, must be able to demonstrate that only original
Sawgrass inks have been used for printing, applies to any domestic dishwasher using
any dishwasher powder/ tablets, liability limited to cost of replacement mugs only.