Glossary → Sublimation coating
Sublimation coating.
the polymer layer that gives dye somewhere to go on a mug, a metal panel or a tile
A polyester-based polymer layer applied to a hard blank so that sublimation dye has something to lodge in, because bare aluminium, glass and ceramic offer nothing. Beaver Paper states the rule in one line: any polyester fabric, or any hard surface carrying a polyester coating, can be sublimated. ChromaLuxe describes its own panels the same way, as a coating that lets the image be infused into the surface rather than printed on top of it, and sells that coating in gloss, semi-gloss and matte, clear and white. The coating is the product; the metal is a carrier for it. Swap to a cheaper blank and the colour, the gloss level and the scratch resistance all move at once while the press settings sit exactly where they were, which is how a shop spends three days chasing the fault into the ink and the profile. The panel that comes back washed out or scuffed was decided at purchase.