Dye sub not for me.

Well after buying a decent press and a Sillouette cameo I have decided that dye sub is not for me.

After weighing up all the odds & my own situation I have decided to concentrate on clothing only.
My main products will be cotton T-shirts, Hoodies and so on so it looks like I need an a3 printer that can cope with pigment ink.

Can anyone could recommend a cheap a3 printer that would be up to the job? Inkjet or laserjet?

There is always the option of getting someone else to make the sublimation transfers for you as you already have the press, then you don't have the headaches of keeping the sublimation inks flowing, or having to buy expensive inks, or worrying about colour profiling etc etc

hi, i started with dye sub then realised it wasn't for me, still kept my printer etc and make the odd mug/phone case now and again, but clothing and vinyl was the way forward for me anyway, never looked backed. i use one color vinyl for most of my work but recently ive picked up some nice contracts who require printed vinyl. at present you got the two lads on here socialgiraffe and rogerc who can supply us non versacamm owners.

Good points, I will be in touch with them. Good to know I don,t have to rule out dyesub.

Doing the same as you Dave and seeing how I go with Vinyl. Did my first press last night and even though it was on a tight ribbed womans vest top it turned out OK. Still going to keep my eye out for a cheap printer though, doing some work with local artists but thats more for fun than bread n butter work.

hi, i'm interesting about pigment ink. if i understand good, it's possible to print on sublimation transfer paper, and after this i can transfer it on to cotton t-shirt? using heat press i thing?

Marek, you need sublimation ink to print onto clothing and this needs a high content of polyester, you cannot print onto cotton clothing using this ink. There are other options to print onto cotton, have a search on here and start a new thread if you need to :-)

i know it. i'm printing on polyester. but i think, that pigment ink working like chromablast.

I converted an epson WF7515 a3 printer to take a bulk ink system of heat transfer ink. Bit fiddly initially but got there in the end however i gave up on them as its such a fine process ie: right paper, ink, heat, time etc... i just wasnt doing enough transfers to justify the time testing all the papers etc.. so converted the printer back but the epson WF printer is a great printer and i would recommend it if you can get everything else right.
For dye sublimation printing i would recommend the Ricoh GX7700, a great printer with great results, especially good that you can add the by pass tray to print A3+ for larger dye sub items, obviosuly you'd need the relevant sized press too :-)