Sublimation printing on mugs – a comparison of premium AAA ORCA mugs versus standard A mugs

The cold season, full of tea, coffee, mulled wine, grog, hot chocolate and other hot drinks, is just around the corner. This is the peak season for personalised photo mugs. So, in this article, we’d like not only to explain the process of producing a mug using sublimation transfer, but also to compare the premium AAA ORCA mug with the standard A-grade mug.

First, we created the design in CorelDraw, laid it out on A4 paper and printed it using the Sawgrass Powerdriver on our Ricoh SG 3110DN. The advantage of the Powerdriver is that you can select the type of sublimation paper and the transfer object (mousepad, ceramics, jigsaw puzzle, etc.), and the colours are optimised accordingly. This is the only way to ensure accurate colour reproduction in sublimation quickly and easily.

The printed designs are cut out as close to right angles as possible (to retain a reference edge for alignment) and stuck onto the prepared mugs – using heat-resistant adhesive tape. In our example , we are using a standard white Subli mug, Grade A, and a premium AAA ORCA mug, which is significantly ‘whiter’ still. We have not used the even cheaper Economy Grade B mug here, which certainly differs from the Grade A mug less in terms of whiteness and more in terms of surface quality.

Both cups were pressed in a Secabo TM1 cup press at medium pressure for 180 seconds at 200°C. As the mugs have a high heat capacity, it is entirely normal for the temperature of the press to drop significantly at first, in some cases to below 150°C. Hence the long transfer time – the crucial period is the final 20–30 seconds, during which the temperature has returned to 200°C.

Immediately after removing the mug from the mug press, the transfer paper must be peeled off – ideally in one go – to avoid ghost images on the mug, which is still at 200°C. It is advisable to stick the thermal transfer paper down with a small tab so that it can be easily peeled off at that point. Any residue on the mug can be wiped off later with a cloth.

Immediately after removing the transfer paper, we plunge the mug into hot water. Cold water would be too cold for the mug, which is 200°C, and it could break. That is why we use hot water – which is repeatedly reheated by the quenching process itself, so there is no need to replace it during production. The quenching process cools the cup sufficiently to halt the sublimation process and prevent the ink particles from evaporating. This ensures the images remain beautifully clear and the edges sharp.

Now we can wipe off any dust and adhesive residue from the thermal tape, and all that’s left are the finished photo mugs. The photo clearly shows the pure white AAA ORCA mug, with the A standard mug on the left.