Glass coasters?

Can anyone help with sourcing decent quality 10x10 glass coasters?

The last ones we've had (Listawood) were terrible, not cut square and with the white sublimation backing splashed all over them. Can't use these as they are an embarassment to send out to customers.

We used to have the "chinchilla" finish coasters which were good quality but these don't seem to be available any more. It's a shame as these were very popular with our customers and it would be great to find a replacement.

Thanks for any help.

Although they are not for sublimation these are a good heavy glass coaster that take a normal paper printer which is permanantly sealed behind a rubber non slip base. There's also a matching placemat.

http://www.intaprintuk.com/EZ/intapr...=Glass_Coaster

Jimbo

Glass products have been going steadily downhill over the last year or two. They used to be fantastic, but now they're not worth doing.

Thanks for that link, Jimbo. I might look at them in the new year.

I have a sample coaster, they are certainly quality items. As they have a black or silver border the size of the print isn't crucial. Did mine with a laser.
I like the rubber type backing, it has a bit of a velvety feel to it.

Jimbo

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Originally Posted by JSR

Glass products have been going steadily downhill over the last year or two. They used to be fantastic, but now they're not worth doing.

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That's depressing. Glass coasters and similar items have been very popular with our customers. We were hoping the chinchilla style still existed somewhere, but the plain glass would be Ok if decent quality.

Seems as though the quality on a lot of the dyesub blanks is a bit ropey recently unfortunately :(

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Originally Posted by Caz

That's depressing. Glass coasters and similar items have been very popular with our customers. We were hoping the chinchilla style still existed somewhere, but the plain glass would be Ok if decent quality.

Seems as though the quality on a lot of the dyesub blanks is a bit ropey recently unfortunately :(

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I tried some of the smaller glass placemats from a different supplier. They look quite nice before printing but, for some odd reason, more of the print stays on the back of the white coating than goes through it. The older/larger placemats always drew more print through the coating than it left behind - they were superb. I have a couple here that I printed up and they're great.

The same thing has happened with the coasters. The original ones were fine, but the "new" ones that came onto the market are like those new glass placemats. The printed result looks like a faded print because the ink isn't drawn through the coating as successfully as on the original coasters/placemats. Result is that I can't sell any of them any more.

The trouble is that you can't tell what will be "dodgy" ones before you buy and you invariably have to buy a box of 20, which works out pretty expensive when you can't sell them. The result is that it's killed the market as far as I'm concerned because I'm not going to hunt through the suppliers trying to sort the wheat from the chaff.

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Originally Posted by Jimbo

I have a sample coaster, they are certainly quality items. As they have a black or silver border the size of the print isn't crucial. Did mine with a laser.
I like the rubber type backing, it has a bit of a velvety feel to it.

Jimbo

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Thanks for the recommendation. I've bookmarked the page.

Actually it's not the print quality we're having trouble with. It's the manufacturing quality of the blanks. The last ones we had weren't cut square, it was really obvious and they look really shoddy, but the supplier claims they don't see anything wrong with them.

We're really looking for the dyesub coasters. Are there any others out there we can try, or have they disappeared?

Thanks for the link to the other coasters. Might give those a try if we can't get anything else.
Is the seal on those good, or is water, coffee, wiping them etc. likely to leak in and damage the print? Does the paper lay flat inside? Wondering if the paper will look rippled with a lot of ink on it.

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Originally Posted by Caz

Actually it's not the print quality we're having trouble with.

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In that case, if you go to a different supplier - get a sample in before buying a pack. Otherwise you'll end up like me, with a box I can't sell.

Looking at the sample I have, it certainly looks watertight, the print is fully encapsulated between the glass and the adhesive backed rubber base.
When you start, the coaster has the rubber base stuck along one edge, you then peel of the backing layer, insert print then press the sticky rubber down. Quick,easy and effective. If you phone Intaprint they will send you a sample.

Jimbo

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Originally Posted by JSR

Glass products have been going steadily downhill over the last year or two. They used to be fantastic, but now they're not worth doing.

Thanks for that link, Jimbo. I might look at them in the new year.

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I think you're bang on Jon. We had some glass coasters in, and indeed still have some in the warehouse. But they're just awful! Overspray being the major issue. Saying that, our chopping boards are actually great and I'll stand by that as I have one at home. A year on from printing it, it still looks brilliant!

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Originally Posted by Scotty@BMS

I think you're bang on Jon. We had some glass coasters in, and indeed still have some in the warehouse. But they're just awful! Overspray being the major issue. Saying that, our chopping boards are actually great and I'll stand by that as I have one at home. A year on from printing it, it still looks brilliant!

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Have your chopping boards changed since you first got them in? The 265mm ones are the ones that I say aren't a patch on the slightly larger ones I used to buy from Listawood - the ink just doesn't go through the white backing on the 265mm ones anywhere nearly as much as it does on the larger ones.

If yours have changed then I could be tempted to try them again - but I still have half a dozen of the other ones here, so I don't want to spend a small fortune on finding out that they're the same.

Thanks for any extra info you have.

I think from memory Scott has the large one and that's what he's referring to.

"Have your chopping boards changed since you first got them in? The 265mm ones are the ones that I say aren't a patch on the slightly larger ones I used to buy from Listawood - the ink just doesn't go through the white backing on the 265mm ones anywhere nearly as much as it does on the larger ones."



Strewth ...and I thought that I was the only one having a problem with these glass chopping boards. I bought a few and you can see that the coating is not even and the image doesn't sublimate as well as the old Listawood ones. Its expensive when I have to ship these out to our island pay 80 odd % duty and then can't use them. I have just told my customers that they are not up to the quality that they expect and have withdrawn them. Maybe we ought to have a list of faulty products so that others can avoid them.

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Originally Posted by swimwivsquid

Strewth ...and I thought that I was the only one having a problem with these glass chopping boards. I bought a few and you can see that the coating is not even and the image doesn't sublimate as well as the old Listawood ones. Its expensive when I have to ship these out to our island pay 80 odd % duty and then can't use them. I have just told my customers that they are not up to the quality that they expect and have withdrawn them. Maybe we ought to have a list of faulty products so that others can avoid them.

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That's roughly what happened here. I was getting a semi-regular order for glass chopping boards and, at one point, I'd run out of the Listawood ones and the BMS 265mm ones had just been introduced so I recommended them to my customer (convinced them to go for the smaller size and everything).

I bought a box of about 20 in from BMS and then realised to my horror that they don't print the same. I couldn't use them. I had to rush an order from Listawood, which resulted in delaying the customer, explaining to them that the new ones were no good, and ending up significantly out of pocket on the deal. Since all the messing about, the customer hasn't returned. I seem to lose customers whenever products are messed about (like my customer for coasters with green baize backing hasn't come back since I had to raise the price because I can't get the baize separately anymore and the ones supplied with backing are badly misaligned).

You'd think I had too many customers or something the way I end up losing them due to products changing. It's very frustrating.

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Originally Posted by bms

I think from memory Scott has the large one and that's what he's referring to.

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Do you get the larger ones from a different manufacturer to the smaller ones, then?

The chopping board itself seems to be okay, it's just the ink-receptive coating on the back that seems to be on backwards or something for the 265mm ones. When you finish pressing them, there's more print on the underneath than what you can see through the glass - unlike the Listawood ones which are vibrant and fully-saturated when seen through the glass, but almost white on the underside.

There's certainly a different coating involved. There must be.

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Originally Posted by JSR

Do you get the larger ones from a different manufacturer to the smaller ones, then?

The chopping board itself seems to be okay, it's just the ink-receptive coating on the back that seems to be on backwards or something for the 265mm ones. When you finish pressing them, there's more print on the underneath than what you can see through the glass - unlike the Listawood ones which are vibrant and fully-saturated when seen through the glass, but almost white on the underside.

There's certainly a different coating involved. There must be.

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Yep thats what I found. I tried a couple more to see if I was doing something wrong and they looked better on the printed side but when viewed through the glass they were faded and uneven.

Have any of the suppliers been complaining to the manufacturers about the poor quality of some of these glass products? Listawood did agree the coasters were pretty bad when we sent them photos and said they would pass the message on to the suppliers. I guess if no one tells the manufacturers their products are no good they'll never improve. We had to use the coasters for an urgent order as we couldn't find anything else - and we actually had to file them square!

We haven't tried the worktop protectors from BMS as they're too small, but thanks for the warning! We've been using the larger Listawood ones which print fine, but since complaining about the coasters we can't login to our Listawood account. I hope that's just coincidence!

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Originally Posted by JSR

Do you get the larger ones from a different manufacturer to the smaller ones, then?

The chopping board itself seems to be okay, it's just the ink-receptive coating on the back that seems to be on backwards or something for the 265mm ones. When you finish pressing them, there's more print on the underneath than what you can see through the glass - unlike the Listawood ones which are vibrant and fully-saturated when seen through the glass, but almost white on the underside.

There's certainly a different coating involved. There must be.

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Strangely enough they come from the same suppliers. Smaller versions still outsell the larger versions.

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Originally Posted by bms

Strangely enough they come from the same suppliers. Smaller versions still outsell the larger versions.

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Well that is strange. I'd like to see if they're any better than they used to be but, based on the ones I still have here, I won't be buying any more in. I lost the regular customer I had because of the messing about that this caused, so I doubt that I'd sell too many more that would justify the cost of sampling.

We get good print results in general with the glass coasters from The Transfer Press - had a few when we first started doing them where the print seemed to stay underneath rather than go through the white printable surface- but only about 4 or 5 out of the 100s we've done. The one thing that we do have problems with though is the durability of the printed surface - it seems that it chips off a bit too easily, and a small chip or scratch in the surface is then very easily scratched to be an even bigger area. Obviously this is more of a problem when packing and storing them for sale, but I wouldn't be happy buying a set of coasters, and finding the artwork scratches off easily when I get home. Has anyone else seen this, and come up with a solution - we've been thinking along the lines of putting a coasting of clear varnish on them or something?