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RyanMKX

List me the items I need to make mugs.

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I want to make Mugs and mouse pads but I have no idea where to start.

I have $700 to start but could save more if I need to.

Can anyone list me a Printer, The Ink and a Press. Or in other words list me the items I need where I could get started today if it was delivered. 

I don't want the best of the best, but like most people i want the best for the lowest price. This won't be high production just something to go along with my shirts. 

Thanks. 

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You will probably want to start out with the Epson printer direction of you are trying to stay on that budget. Lots of decisions just in the printer such as printing area size. I would go big like a 7610 13x19. Cobraink is a good resource for ink and color profiles.  I have not made mugs but many on here use the cactus wraps and cook them in a standard hose oven. There are mug presses but I think the only ones that work really good are higher end and may be touchy about which mis will fit. Is your press a good quality? There is a lot of color variance for even fairly small temperature variations so the budget presses may or may not perform as well for you. I tried the sublimation game but didn't find a revenue stream large enough to make it worth the trouble. Very cool though. I don't run a brick and mortar store and a lot of the likely good selling items are the kind that a walk in customer would be choosing. Dog tags key chains, etc... Condie sells a whole host of sublimatable products. The flip flops are pretty cool and my kids loved them. 

I realize I didn't give you a shopping list but hopefully some ideas to research anyway. 

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4 hours ago, Wildgoose said:

You will probably want to start out with the Epson printer direction of you are trying to stay on that budget. Lots of decisions just in the printer such as printing area size. I would go big like a 7610 13x19. Cobraink is a good resource for ink and color profiles.  I have not made mugs but many on here use the cactus wraps and cook them in a standard hose oven. There are mug presses but I think the only ones that work really good are higher end and may be touchy about which mis will fit. Is your press a good quality? There is a lot of color variance for even fairly small temperature variations so the budget presses may or may not perform as well for you. I tried the sublimation game but didn't find a revenue stream large enough to make it worth the trouble. Very cool though. I don't run a brick and mortar store and a lot of the likely good selling items are the kind that a walk in customer would be choosing. Dog tags key chains, etc... Condie sells a whole host of sublimatable products. The flip flops are pretty cool and my kids loved them. 

I realize I didn't give you a shopping list but hopefully some ideas to research anyway. 


Thanks, I was thinking Mugs sold pretty well because I see so many. But I may have to look deeper if it's not worth the effort.  I really don't want to dive into it if there's so many variations that control what you can and can't do.  Other than t-shirts and decals what else closely related that can make a few bucks without a lot of headache?
I need to use up this space in my garage to bring in some $. 

 

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I have some customers that come back year after year for 50-150 mugs at a time - for me ricoh printer - more expensive but can sit for months and fire up without clogged nozzles is a must for me as I go a while between orders, I  use cactus wraps in the oven for edge to edge coverage and no fade at the handle area. I also get mugs from marck in toledo - cost more but always great images and great mugs with no broken handles.   just my 2c

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Yeah I do mostly shirts in my business and thought I would really blow open a whole new side of it with sublimation. I went with the Epson printer just because it was so much cheaper to get started and figured if it did in fact take off I would upgrade to a ricoh gel printer. I found that I had a hard sell with white 100% polyester shirts. There are certain other polyester applications like some of the safety color options that you can add a black or dark color onto but many of those are 50/50 and just don't come through nice and crisp. In the end I let my printer set too long and it plugged up and I have not been able to unplug it. Fortunately that entire set up only cost something like $300 and I did a couple decent orders that paid for it so it wasn't a loss. Still have my cobraink carts with die-sub ink and if something comes along that will make it worth buying another 7610/7620 I will hop back in and do it. Those printers are selling for $150 on sale fairly regularly. I have another that I use for printed transfers (JPSS and 3G) too. I use that one enough that I have not clogged it up.

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