JennD

Most of my sublimation products are hard substrates. I have had zero issues with scratching in 11+ years. Sublimation actually becomes part of the coating so unlike the old days where the an un-sublimated image would sit on top of your ceramic and you could scratch it off with a nail, with sublimation you would need to remove the actual coating to scratch off the sublimated image. Fading is definitely an issue with sublimation. We suggest indoor applications to cover ourselves. That being said, sunlight is relative to where you are planning on installing. The effects of sunlight in NY and going to be certainly less than the effects of sunlight in say FL or CA. Also, certain colors seem to fade faster than others. I have heard of some people using Frog Shield to add extra UV protection and also protect from graffiti but have never used it myself. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has used that product. One last thing ... if you are planning on doing an outdoor tile, be sure to use a porcelain tile if they are being installed in an area where it freezes. Glazed ceramic is too porous and will absorb a ton of water whereas porcelain are non porous and will only absorb 1% of their weight of water.

Who's presses are you using? The pads on the Insta presses are fairly soft. The Geo. Knight pads are much thinner and firmer.

Maxcat128 beat me to it! They are silicone and you can source them pretty easy.

Hello Everyone! I am new to vinyl cutting & printing. I have over 10 years experience with wide format Sublimation printing. We currently have four Mimaki JV 300 64" Sublimation printers and a, new to us, Roland SP 540V VersaCamm. We are just starting to tinker with the Roland and the lovely solvent inks. The Roland is a cutting machine but it's slow compared to where we like to be ... which is or course fast! I'm glad to be here and will be very interested in learning from all of your shared knowledge as well as contributing any of my Sublimation information.

I do a large volume of 'one-off' custom items. I lay out and use the full extent of the paper and then trim out the individual items that I need. I can get 16 (15 oz.) mugs on a strip - using my templates they cut to fix exact so there is no question that each and every mug will be the same. I also do 11 oz. mugs, water bottles, multiple tile sizes (and grades) and some metal and hardboard items. The cost of sub paper is pretty inexpensive so any waste is negligible.

The largest items that we currently press are with an image area of 12"x12". We recently had a request for 12"x24" tiles and looked into purchasing a larger platen heat press but we declined after speaking with some tile manufacturers and finding out the fragility of that size tile.

I do large format sublimation. I can print up to 64" wide and however long but I can't press larger then 16" x 20" which would still leave you high & dry.

I have. Unisub has one that is .045" thick. The standard thickness seems to be .030. The part number I have is 7599. Oddly, it's not shown at all on their site but I think you can find it through Conde.