Engravable Mugs

[James & Zelma Litzmann]

Does anyone have any advice on engraving coffee mugs? I have a customer that wants at least a "gross" of them. I guess the look on my face told him I wasn't sure what a gross was, so he told me he wanted a 144? Ha ha.

Thanks a bunchies for all you help.

God Bless,
Zelma (Psalms 18:2)

[Larry Bratton]

Zelma, that wouldn't be gross to me! 144 is a nice order:D Just kidding!

I have never done any coffee mugs on my engraver. We have ,however made an investment into the equipment to do the OEM transfer thing which is similar to sublimation except a whole lot cheaper. We have a mug press to do the heat part coming in tomorrow. This appears to me a good way to do a coffee mug in lieu of engraving. I'm sure their is product available though. Good luck with it.

[Frank Corker]

Zelma - you will have a problem if the stuff is ceramic based. Ceramic engraves like extruded acrylic, it's there, you just can't see it. The only way you would be able to do it is with infilling, but your infill paint is going to come away once it has a hot drink in it. Sublimination is probably the only real proposition or transfers, but unless someone has some miracle solution it won't happen for you.

[Larry Bratton]

That's kinda what I was thinking Frank, but since I didn't have any practical experience to play on, I had to refer to someone else.

Zelma, the OEM transfer thing might be another area for you to look into as an added item. Fairly inexpensive to get into. To do mugs, would be less than a $1000.00. Need printer of the right kind..$300-400 dollars, some special paper and pads for heating. Some mug wraps and you can get a $40.00 convection oven to start. I bought a mug press, $650.00 to start (but I tend to over-kill anyhow) They say the process is as durable as dye sub and to me look just as good. Flat goods require a heat press, but the mugs would be a good start. Good luck!

[Bill Cunningham]

Ordinary Cermark..Which 'is' ceramic, will work on ceramic..
(I have a cat picture here someplace on a ceramic tile)
As long as black etching is Ok with your customer..

[Mike Null]

Larry

I've had the CLT (what you call OEM) transfer system for years. I do not use it on mugs as they can't stand up to the dishwasher. I am aware the new toners are better than the old but I would still run some pretty severe tests before I began marketing them.

I've not had success lasering ceramic mugs nor have I had success with sandblasting them. The glaze is not consistent so you can blast them and still not remove all the color. Or you can blast them so deeply that they have sharp edges. (glass mugs can be lasered and blasted)

The best methods are screening or dye sublimating.

[Nancy Laird]

Zelma, you did say glass, didn't you? Are these clear glass mugs, about as big around as they are tall? If they are clear glass, the engraving will do fine on them (the cheaper the glass the better the engraving will turn out). Your problem is going to be making the image show up in the same place on all of the mugs, and you have two choices: either a rotary attachment and figure out your placement every time, or keep your image small enough so that you can build a jig to hold the mugs and just do a plain raster. Either way, they will look a LOT better if you laser them through a mask and sandblast them.

Of course, if the mugs aren't clear glass, all of the above is moot. We are sticking to clear glass stuff, so if they are anything else, I know nuttin'.

Nancy

[AL Ursich]

I have Sublimation and a Mug Press and the price kills most wholesale deals. Is there a better way? I have seen what I thought was screen printing selling at what it cost me to Sublimate. I have a market for them in this tourist area but the price needs to be better.

AL

[Larry Bratton]

Mike, we shall see, won't we? I doubt if it will be a huge item for us, but we do need a way to do some color things. I got most of my info in the other forums, and the opinions are very good. I went with the Okidata printer..3400n I think it is. As to the dishwasher and durablity I am reading and people are claiming the durablity to be right up there with dye sub. Somebody even said they pressure washed a mug and got no degradation of the transfer. I guess time will tell all, but it wasn't a huge investment and we needed the printer anyway.

[Todd Schwartz]

Zelma,

Had the same request at Christmas, we ended up using glass "Irish" coffee mugs, they are not as big as a typical coffee mug. Used the rotary attachement and a little practice. Actually taped over the mug with a couple of layers of blue painters tape, turned the power way down and just marked the tape. Did this until I was happy with the alignment and could repeat it. Be careful not to run the mug's handle into the engraving head.

They turned out great, did a coaster for them as well.

Good luck.

Todd

[Mike Null]

Larry

If you had asked my opinion I would have told you to buy exactly what you bought. And your point is right on target. CLT gives you a way to apply color to most substrates.

My reservation deals specifically with mugs and their dishwashability. I found that it didn't last. I used mugs with a gloss finish--if you use a matt finish they will be better.

My guess is that you'll pay for your new printer on your first order of t-shirts.

[James & Zelma Litzmann]

O.K., from what I gather I should go with the glass mugs, does anyone have a good source for these?

I too would love to do the system with the mug press but haven't had time to research that yet. This individual that wants these mugs also wants give aways, Christmas presents for employees and customers, I really, really hate to tell him I can not do this. He mentioned green mugs with white writing but I'll try to sell him on what I can do. He's from out of town and only comes by occasionally.

Thanks everyone for all the information, I just think you all are such a wonderful group of people.


God Bless,
Zelma (Psalms 18:2)

[Steve McKee]

O.K., from what I gather I should go with the glass mugs, does anyone have a good source for these?

If you have a restaurant supply distributor close by you might check with them. I use one and they have, or can at least order, all kinds of glass products. Tell them what you're looking for and I'm sure they can find something in their catalog.

[Nancy Laird]

Zelma, the cups we have are Libbey glass, got from a local restaurant supplier. They are available on the net - just Google Libbey glass and you'll find them--maybe at better prices too.

Nancy

[Larry Bratton]

Mike:
Yes, Mick at Cactus told me the matte would do better and the regular glazed garden variety mugs would need to be hand washed. However, the price of the matt finished mugs is pretty cheap..like .69 a piece. If I were to get an order for a lot of them I would use those and would of course put a disclaimer in the quotation.
My main interest is applying color to wood items we can make in our woodworking shop and add to our product line. I think we may try some shirts too. We have a lot of contacts with manufacturers and reps that buy advertising items for their businesses. Short run stuff mostly. Thanks for the advice.
Excuse us Zelma, didn't mean to hijack your thread. Good luck with the glass.

[Mike Null]

Larry
We're on the same page. Good luck with your new machine.

I've never had occasion to try it on wood, maybe I should have a look.

[Barry Basiliere]

I have used mugs from Ikea with great success. Their item number is 115514 and the mugs are less than $1 each. I used the rotary attachment on my laser. I set the speed to 100 and power to 80 and it took 2 minutes and 18 seconds of laser time for each one.

As mentioned in a previous post use blue tape and run a sample on the tape to insure correct position. For the blue tape I use 200 dpi, speed 100 and power 20.

Barry

[Larry Bratton]

Good job Barry! Those are nice.

[James & Zelma Litzmann]

Barry, the mug looks good, really great! Have you done a lot of these? I hope we can do something similar.

Thanks for the input.
Zelma (Psalms 18:2)

[Barry Basiliere]

I have not done a lot of these but they were very easy to do. The only thing you have to watch out for is the handle as the rotary device turns the mug and the handle can hit the carriage.

I have done quite a few wine glasses on the rotary attachment and they went very well.

I have included some of the other glass that I have done.

Barry