THE T-SHIRT PRINTING NIGHTMARE

I decided to start a new business. The business of applying photo images to t-shirts, mugs, water bottles, mouse pads, key chains, etc. Cynthia, my daughter, owns a pet supply store and will soon be adding a pet photography studio. It seemed logical to set up my printing business within her store. I mean, who wouldn't love a pic of their pet on a t-shirt or mug???

So...I ordered all the equipment and essentials. I opted for a MagicFlow system with an Epson 1400 printer for the t-shirts. For everything else I selected an Epson C88+ with a CISS for sublimation. Yes, you can sublimate on t-shirts, but they must be 100% poly ( or atleast a blend? ) and I don't like polyester.

Well, all the equipment arrived - the printers, heat press, mug press, sublimation ink, mugs, transfer paper - everything in perfect condition. Paul, my son, hooked up the ciss to both printers and installed them on my laptop. I delivered the equipment to Cynthia's store - Wy&Cy Pet Supply and Cynthia and I set up everything. So far, so good.


LET THE NIGHTMARE BEGIN!!

I filled the ciss on the 1400 with majic flow ink. While doing so, I dropped the lid to the cyan inside the printer. I couldn't get it out so I figured - no big deal. I finished filling and priming the ciss and printed. There was cyan (blue) ink everywhere - in the printer and on me. The ink was pouring out of the opening where the lid was suppose to be. I put a piece of scotch tape over it and printed again. DO NOT try to use scotch tape as a lid substitute, it does not work. The ink continued to pour out at an alarming rate and I could not get it to stop. Out of desperation I told Cynthia to chew some bubble gum - that's right - I was going to use the gum as a substitute lid for the blue ink. However, I got the ink to stop flowing before she had the gum chewed.

At this point we decided it was in our best interest to retrieve the blue lid. I removed the ciss from the printer but...we couldn't find the lid. We turned the printer upside down and sideways. When we finally found the lid, we couldn't reach it. Cynthia got a piece of wire and stuck her gum on the end to stick it on the lid and pull it out. She pulled the wire out and not only did she not have the lid but she also didn't have the gum!! GOOD LORD, I now had a lid and a wad of gum stuck in my brand new printer. She got most (yes, most) of the gum out. Our next brilliant idea was to take the back and sides off the printer. That didn't work either, we still couldn't get to the lid.

This entire process had taken several hours. Completely out of patience, I ran to an electronics store to see if I could find something to replace that stupid lid. I had just arrived when Cynthia called and said she retrieved the lid!! WOOHOO!!!! When I got back to her store, she was holding her wire/gum tool and the lid was stuck on the end of it!!

The printer is working great. It doesn't seem to be suffering from all that trauma.

Now...as for the heat press and sublimation printer. OMG.