Hello all.
I'm still in the process of getting myself set up. My business won't be handling large quanitites - it will be more about the designs which will be available on a wide variety of items and sold to a niche market.
As I am looking to do small quantities of a lot of different items, I believe an oven of some sort would be most suitable for me (ie versatile), but I am going around in circles somewhat! - especially since it's hard to gauge the internal dimensions of the various types looking at things online.
The convection ovens designed specifically for sublimation (even countertop ones) look to be bigger than I would need (especially in the early days - but if things go well, hopefully that's where I'll end up), and I also don't think I could justify the cost at the outset anyhow.
However, I have seen that people are using halogen ovens, domestic convection ovens, and even the convection setting on microwave combi ovens. Has anyone used/does anyone use any of these? What are the pros and cons of each? What sort of capacity does each have (especially height for taller items)? What are their limitations? (So sorry for the slew of questions!)
I have also seen the sublimation vacuum oven sold by Signzworld, and, if I really pushed it, my budget might stretch to that. However, I have read some nightmare stories obout this style of vacuum press - but I don't know if that was down to user error, or knock-off copies of the machine.
With the right wraps / shrink wrap, are the results that much different between all the available options, and does reliability of results vary much?
I keep switching back and forth in my thoughts. I'm currently leaning towards starting out with a hallogen as it's a cheap way to start off, but it depends if it's reliable method or not. I appreciate it's small, but so long as I can fit 1 or 2 of all the items I'm likely to sublimate onto in it, that doesn't concern me at this stage. However, if you ask me on a different day, I might be leaning towards a small convection oven, or the vacuum oven on yet another day!
Any help, advice, sharing of experiences would be very much appreciated!!