Newbie here to this forum, as well as newbie to the world to dye sublimation.
I'm setting up a business doing some dye sublimation work and am having some issues pressing 2 sided pet tags. I initially had the issue on my first test batch, however the supplier said that it was a 'tooling' issue, and they figured they had the issue corrected. So, I ordered more tags and prepared a bunch of tags to give to friends and family for testing purposes. Every single person came back saying with 1-2 days of their pet wearing them the edges were worn/chipping. The tags given out were a mixture of bones / circle tags, and the pet wearing them ranged from couch potatoes to active.
We are using the Sawgrass Virtuoso 400 for the printing, and have a Hotronix Fusion Heat Press. This heat press has a pad on the bottom platen, which we apply kraft paper for protection, lay the blank down (with side being press facing towards top platen), transfer paper facing downward on top of that, then more protective paper. The temperature is set to 375F and we are pressing the backs first (information side). Then we press the front (graphic side) - we wait until the product is cooled, but for the most part we wait 2-3 hours after the first side is done. For some of the samples I've removed the transfer paper immediately (some I've removed carefully and others of removed quickly), and for the other samples I've actually waited until the product is cooled.
I should note that they are 2 sided aluminum (sublimation coating on both sides), however also wondered if there are 2 sided steel ones available?
I'm at a loss as to what's going on. I don't know if it's the tag product I'm buying (from what I can tell, coming from a reputable supplier), or if it's method I'm using. Perhaps some suggestion on suppliers for 2 sided pet tags for sublimation? If you've had chipping issues, and how did you correct them? I'm a complete newbie, so any knowledge you can share, suggest, anything at all I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks for reading my long post!