How does a standard tumbler turn into the work of art you love? A LOT of Time and Patience.
Below we will give you a glimpse of what goes into the making of your custom tumbler and why a tumbler costs what it does.
Here is a quick breakdown of each step that a tumbler goes through throughout its journey. In this example, we will be making a simple 1 color glitter cup with a vinyl decal.
- Select your Tumbler
Not all tumblers are the same and not all designs can be done on all tumblers. The design can affect the tumbler chosen. - Clean Tumbler (15min)
Once you have selected your Tumbler, now it needs to be cleaned. This means using acetone, etc to remove all dirt, grime, oils and stickers from your tumbler. - Prep Your Tumbler (15min)
Once your tumbler is clean, you then need to prep it for the chosen design. Most all tumbler designs begin with a base coat of a like color spray paint, this could take one coat or 4 depending on the cup. - …and we WAIT for paint to dry (30min)
Once the base coat is on your tumbler, you have to do one of the most challenging things, WAIT. You can find yourself literally watching paint dry as you wish it dry so you can get started on your next step. - Base Glitter & Epoxy (65min)
Now that we have a base coat, we can begin to mix our epoxy. That process is slow and tedious because you must mix your epoxy at just the right room temperature and just the right speed to avoid adding bubbles to it. Typically your epoxy gets hand mixed for about 10-15 minutes. Once fully mixed, we apply it to the cup and let the cup spin for a few minutes. Once your cup is covered in epoxy, you can start covering it in your desired base glitter color. - …and we WAIT some more (6-8 hours)
Again, the most difficult part of this process, the WAIT! The epoxy needs at least 6-8 hours to dry before we can move on to the next step. - Epoxy Round 2 (30min)
Now that our glitter is in place with the 1st layer of dry epoxy, we can move on to the next coat of epoxy. This coat of epoxy will smooth all of our glitter. This process is a little quicker as we just coat the cup in epoxy and wait for it to dry. - …and we WAIT some more (6-8 hours)
Again, the most difficult part of this process, the WAIT! The epoxy needs at least 6-8 hours to fully dry before we can move on to the next step. - Decal Time! (30-60 minutes)
Now that our glitter is safely encased in epoxy, we can move on to our decal. Once we find the graphic we want we will need to use a vinyl cutting machine (like a Cricket) to cut it out. Once the vinyl is cut out, we begin the task of “weeding” the cut out graphic. In this process you typically use a “dental” type pick to slowly remove pieces of vinyl one at a time, so you are left with only the desired graphic and no additional unneeded vinyl. Once the “weeding” is done, we can transfer the decal to some transfer tape and get it transferred to our cup. Also there are waterslide decals we use, these have to be printed, seal coated 3 times with 1 hr between each layer. (again a real fun waiting game) - Epoxy Round 3 (30min)
Now that our decal is placed on our cup, we want to give the cup 1 last coat of epoxy to encase the decal and protect it from the wear & tear of every day life. - …and we WAIT some more (72 hours for full cure)
Again, the most difficult part of this process, the WAIT! The epoxy needs at least 72 hours to fully cure before we can move on to the next step of getting it ready to ship out. This cure time is longer than normal as we want the epoxy to be fully hardened before it gets packaged for shipping.
- Cleanup and Finish Work (15min)
Now that the epoxy is cured, the glitter is safe and the decal is secured, we need to do some cleanup. With all that spray paint, glitter and epoxy, there is always a little mess that needs to be addressed. With a razor blade and acetone, we go through the process of trimming any access epoxy and cleaning any undesirables from the inside of the cup. - Done!
We can now enjoy the fruits of our labor.
For those of you that were keeping track, here is the breakdown:
- ~ 24+ Hours in waiting for Epoxy to dry
- ~ 2 Hours Applying Epoxy & Glitter
- ~1 Hour Finding/Cutting/Weeding/Applying Decal
- ~ 45 minutes in Cup Prep at Beginning and Finish
- ~ a full 72 hours in cure time
That’s almost 4 hours of labor to do a “simple” glitter and decal tumbler. Don’t forget you have material costs too!
Next time you look at a custom tumbler, just remember how much love, care and time went into creating your favorite cup. When you see a custom tumbler for $50, you’re likely to ask yourself, 4 hours labor + supplies…why is it so cheap?
We do it because we love what we do…and we all can agree, you can’t put a price on your favorite cup.
These take a long time to do, plus trying to wrangle two little boys, work and maintain the house… its a lot, but again we love it and we hope you see the love we put in to every cup!