Looking for a new revenue stream? Consider heat transfer dye sublimation.
Did you know that you can transfer images to just about anything using heat transfer dye sublimation? You simply print the image on transfer paper and apply it to the object with heat. Voila! A great sellable product!
You may be wondering what we mean by dye sublimation. It’s a technology that has been around for decades. It sounds complicated and technical, like something reminiscent of chemistry class, but it’s a very simple process, especially with the inks (dyes), heat presses, and other materials that have come to market in recent years.
According to Wikipedia, “sublimation is the transition of a substance directly from the solid to the gas phase, without passing through the intermediate liquid phase.” An example of this would be dry ice – the solid carbon dioxide sublimates and becomes a gas at room temperature. A dye-sublimation printer uses heat to transfer dye onto materials.
But more pertinent to the following discussion is the heat transfer dye sublimation process, whereby an image is printed into special transfer paper and subsequently transferred onto an object through the application of heat and pressure. See, that’s not so complicated, after all!
According to David Gross, president of Condé Systems, a supplier of sublimation technology who has been involved with sublimation printing for 27 years, “From a commercial printer’s perspective, the investment to get into heat transfer dye sublimation can be as little as $3,500—or even less. And you can get started with drinkware, producing fabulous looking, modern, and exciting drinkware with very little effort and great margins.”
Vik Patel, director of marketing at Sawgrass, a manufacturer of sublimation printers for creating personalized products, added, “For $550, you can acquire a printer and an initial supply of ink, add a small flat heat press for $1,000, a small convection oven from Walmart for $80, purchase heat transfer paper and some SubliShrink shrink wrap film sleeves, blanks to sublimate on, and you are ready to go.”
Mug Shots
Patel references SubliShrink, and that requires a little explanation. Think about the printed mugs you have seen in gift shops or even in your kitchen. Notice that there is white space around and below the handle. That’s because the typical process for imaging onto mugs requires taping the heat transfer paper to the mug and then placing it in a special heat press designed for cylindrical objects. The handle gets in the way, so you can’t put an image there. But that’s where SubliShrink and that $80 convection oven from Walmart comes in.
Think of SubliShrink as kind of like a plastic bag. As with conventional heat transfer, you would tape the transfer paper to the mug, but you can put the image everywhere on the mug because you are not going to be using a cylindrical heat press. Instead, once the image is taped on there, simply put the mug into the SubliShrink plastic bag and place it, along with four or five of its closest friends, into that convection oven. Not only can you get full coverage on the mug, but you also can do four or five at a time, making it a much more efficient process. In the end, there is a cooling process, and the heat transfer paper and SubliShrink are removed and discarded.
Now, let’s say you are producing brochures for a product launch event. You’re going to print exactly the number you need with your digital printer. Now, in addition to the beautiful brochures, you can also add a dozen custom mugs (instead of having to order a minimum of 144 from many vendors for custom imaged mugs). And don’t stop there. You can use the process to add an image to just about anything. How about some coasters to go with the mugs? Or maybe you want to place your branding on golf towels—for that, you would need a flat heat press, but again, the investment is not high. You can truly let your imagination run wild and offer extra value-added promotional items with ease. Plus, as Patel points out, there’s a good profit margin in it.
A Touch of Class
Now, let’s take it a step further. You can create some beautiful home or office décor pieces with a flat heat press, dye sublimation paper, and classy material like Chromaluxe. The item in the photo above looks great printed here, but even more fabulous in person.
You can also use heat transfer dye sublimation and a flat heat press to decorate apparel—T-shirts and more. Plus, you can also get a specialized heat press designed to image baseball caps. And how about producing some packaging for those beautiful mugs you just produced?
Here’s an example (above), compliments of Condé Systems, which provides a wide variety of blanks you can image using this process.
At a recent trade show, I saw gorgeous backlit signs made from fabric that were decorated using the heat transfer process. This requires a larger printer and heat press but is certainly something a business could grow into—or you could simply offer that to your clients and outsource the actual production to a partner.
Double Duty
With the affordability of acquiring the necessary equipment and consumables, just about anyone can get into this business. It’s within reach of marketing departments, copy shops, in-plant print shops, and more, and can set you apart with your customers.
For dealers and resellers, selling the equipment and consumables is also a great opportunity. You can use the process to create your own promotional items, which play a dual role in promoting your business and giving customers ideas about what they can do to promote theirs.
Dye sublimation sounds like a complicated process, but really, it’s pretty simple—and fun! While many companies are offering branded promotional products, many will walk away from smaller deals, and that leaves a lot of small businesses out in the cold. You can be there to help them out or provide a service to your own company.
Either way, heat transfer sublimation offers an exciting and profitable business diversification opportunity. And you don’t have to have a degree in chemistry to benefit from it.
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