Mug Sublimation Questions

[ManchesterPress]

Hi,

I have been selling mugs now for little over a year (located in the U.K) and I'm looking to scale for the next year.

I only sell 10oz/11oz mugs at the moment. I'm looking to expand my range to cover coasters and coloured mugs (handle and interior).

My peak sales volume is ~60 mugs per day.

Budget (£2000-2500)

Equipment and materials that I currently have:

Mug press MD-110 - Low starter
EPSON ET-2826- InkExpress inks (with their ICC profile for this printer)
InkExpress mug paper

10oz ORCA AAA Mugs from Neil bros
Smashproof boxes from Neil bros

To ship I use Parcel2Go/Yodel. Which means some mugs do arrive broken but cheaper than RM (and currently better).
The amount of broken mugs works out cheaper as a whole than using RM - taking resends into accounts.


Issues I'm running into that I'd really need some advice on:

I want to provide more vibrant prints and photomugs. At the moment my prints/designs are simple with not a huge range of colour due to two issues:

• If I add too much ink, my printer isn't really high tier causing pizza wheel marks due to the ink not drying in time.
• ICC Profile doesn't accurately represent the colours displayed on Photoshop.

Any advice on getting a custom ICC profile (even with an X-Rite or alternatives), what's the best way to go about this?

• I want to get as close to a full mug print as possible without an oven - the current press doesn't press evenly and has faded edges.

Any suggestions on good mug presses that press evenly and are able to get as close to a full wrap as possible consistently?


For coasters I will be using UniSub 9x9 hardwood coasters. Any advice on press?

[pisquee]

Do you own screen and printer ICC profiling.

Look into negotiating rates on business accounts with courier's, Inc RM

Get Inktec inks, and their papers

Get better printer

PressMech flat bed press