Tiki Mug Disaster

Could NOT f'ing believe it!!!

I've been hunting for the typical Trader Vic's mug for no other reason than I like the color and shape, you know the one, plain, black rim and base with the Trader Vic's shield on the front, I've seen them in gold, green and blue....not sure if there's another color. I have old short fingers so like a skinnier mug around the middle for ease of grasping after having a few.

I wanted gold and have been bidding on them on ebay for at least 5 years. I'm always outbid. Even bid on a green one, better than nothing. About a month ago someone posted all 3 in one auction!! ...gold, green and blue. I watched the bidding for a couple days and it was decent. I figured, what the heck, and fully intended to take the bid no matter what so I bid a hefty chunk of change....BIG change. I'm tired of scouring the planet for them and here I get all 3 at once. Photos looked odd so I was worried I was bidding on some crap.

Got excited when I took the bid and wrote the guy making sure to pack them well. I think he felt sorry for what I ended up paying, plus shipping becuase he tossed in a tiny little mini mug by Squid. Yay!

Sure enough they got here and I opened the box on the carpeted floor to make sure I didn't accidentally drop one. SCORE! Awesome...they were perfect! Even better than the pictures on eBay.

So because I'm a nutjob about bugs and germs I put them in the dishwasher, like I have all my tiki mugs.

And next morning I opened the dishwasher and got instantly sick....all the black paint peeled off the rims and words.....the Trader Vic's shield was ok, but the rest was a mess. I'm guessing, the value of my Trader Vic's tiki mugs just tanked in the lava pit. $#%^#@$!!!

I'm so irked I could just BARF. Who would think the trim is PAINTED....I assumed (stupidly) that it was part of the mug glaze. Jeez. I'm going to go soak my head. My beautiful mugs....wasted.

Adding insult to injury....the heat here has caused hairline cracks in the decorative rock on the front of my house and the water from sprinkling the yard seeped into the cracks, dribbled down the interior walls and into the back of my tiki bar. Didn't know it for a month....the mold under there was over an inch thick, looked like a spider explosion, and now waiting for insurance company to find out if it's covered. Sooooooo, we'll be tearing out the mold, cabinets, etc. hey, at least we'll be spending more time in the tiki bar.

LavaLounger
Everything's hot and crispy in kansas city

Really sorry to hear about the Mugs, But a word of advice, always hand wash your mugs.

Thanks for the tip, could have used it last week.

Up til now, these are the only ones that have done this and I've run all my mugs through the dishwasher numerous times. But boy-howdy, had I known this would happen, I'd have hand-washed for sure. Maybe someone else will be saved this miserable outcome now.

Guess I'll have to go get some Sharpie markers or something and draw it back on....or glue on some black paper, make some little belts out of cut up loafers...arghhh.

LL

I feel for ya brada... That cold paint does not like dishwashers or scrub brushes..
Go get some paint and paint it on, I think the marker will look like crap.. You should be able to get them back to perfect if you have a steady hand.. Good luck and remember, no more dishwashers for the nicer mugs..!;)

[ Edited by: beachbumz 2011-07-22 14:10 ]

There are plenty of similar "lessons learned from experience" type of posts in the Tiki Mug Misfortunes thread in the Collecting Tiki folder. Well worth a perusal by anyone who owns/makes/buys/sells/ships tiki mugs. WARNING: Some posts contained in said thread may cause heartbreak.

Bear

[ Edited by: Brudda Bear 2011-07-22 12:04 ]

Cold paint. Sheesh. Can't believe I've never heard of it! I've done ceramics for 20 years or more and, seriously, never heard of cold paint. :::grumble::: I'm such a moron.

I have a brainstorm, so I'm going to try to fix them. Considered doing an overglaze to repair them but I'm pretty sure that Trader Vic's shield is a decal and will fire off, not to mention exploding the mug in the kiln. But I do have glass paints. Still requires 325-degree bake process. Might have to sacrifice one of the mugs to test the idea...they're ruined as it is. I've painted tiki stuff on bottles and glass stemware, (such as Lava Juice theme on my 151 Rum float dispenser-lol)....so glass paint could work. Plus, it'd take dishwasher abuse.

In case anyone wonders, I have bad athsma related allergies so keeping tiki clean is a full time job or I'd have to get rid of it all, I even wash the grass skirting and matting-I'll do most anything to keep tiki clean so I can keep the tiki bar.

I'm guessing so I don't tread on TC protcol, I should post my work and results in the craft section or whatever part of forums it should go?? Yes??

cold paint.....sheesh.
LavaLounger
boiling in kansas

On 2011-07-22 11:42, Beachbumz wrote:
I feel for ya brada... That cold paint does not like dishwashers or scrub brushes..
Go get some paint and paint it on, I think the marker will look like crap.. You should be able to get them back to perfect if you have a steady hand.. Good luck and remember, no more dishwashers for the nicer mugs..!;)

[ Edited by: beachbumz 2011-07-22 14:10 ]

Thanks for the close up picture........I can see how they should look now, this will help me. I have an idea....but worries me that I'll make them worse or break them. As they are now, at least I can use them. Provenance on them will be hilarous one day, but this isn't that day.

LavaLounger

You can ask "MakeDaMug" (Holden), right here on TC for some advice
He is the main Man at "Tiki Farm"

If you re-fire the mug you will loose the decal.

Ugh I feel your pain...that would bring me to tears! But thank you for sharing, hopefully others will avoid a similar fate.

On 2011-07-23 10:31, Chuck Tatum is Tiki wrote:
You can ask "MakeDaMug" (Holden), right here on TC for some advice
He is the main Man at "Tiki Farm"

If you re-fire the mug you will loose the decal.

I concur. Email Holden, see what he suggests. After all, his company made them in the first place. He may even be able to fix them correctly for you.

Bear

LavaLounger, check with DanLovesTikis (Wendy). She uses some bake on paints on ceramics, she could probably give you some tips.

I posted on FB for Wendy and will email her too. She may indeed have some ideas.

Hi Lavalounger, I because a tiki artist because my husband the tiki collector asked me over and over again to repair his "found" tiki treasures. He had even bought the sneaky tiki Harvey's mug with all the orange tiki paint moved the new places by a dishwasher. After searching for a long time I found the best product for these paint repairs. To buy it go to Google and type in Dick Blick. This is a paint supply business.

Then search for Liquitex glossies black.

You paint it on, let it dry for at least 24 hours and then bake it in your home oven at 325 degrees for 45 minutes.

Their red is an exact match for the skirts on the Islander surfing girl. So if you have other mugs to repair you could order some other colors as well. I use this paint on the hula girls that I've made for the swap put on by ZeroTiki if you want to see how well it works. It will be shinny and not dishwasher safe but it will make your mugs look better. To get the paint off your mug that you don't want use a razor blade, it won't hurt the mug but it will get off the paint you do not want.

Good luck, Wendy

Thanks for stopping by Wendy. So nice of you to share your mug wisdom. :wink:

On 2011-07-24 07:28, danlovestikis wrote:
Hi Lavalounger, I because a tiki artist because my husband the tiki collector asked me over and over again to repair his "found" tiki treasures. He had even bought the sneaky tiki Harvey's mug with all the orange tiki paint moved the new places by a dishwasher. After searching for a long time I found the best product for these paint repairs. To buy it go to Google and type in Dick Blick. This is a paint supply business.

Then search for Liquitex glossies black.

You paint it on, let it dry for at least 24 hours and then bake it in your home oven at 325 degrees for 45 minutes.

Their red is an exact match for the skirts on the Islander surfing girl. So if you have other mugs to repair you could order some other colors as well. I use this paint on the hula girls that I've made for the swap put on by ZeroTiki if you want to see how well it works. It will be shinny and not dishwasher safe but it will make your mugs look better. To get the paint off your mug that you don't want use a razor blade, it won't hurt the mug but it will get off the paint you do not want.

Good luck, Wendy

Wendy-
Thank you so much for your help and tips. And you are right, the dishwasher "moved" the paint around. However I'd already gotten itchy and did some re-working before I logged back into T/C for the responses. And you are right, I used bake-on glass paints. I've done a lot of the glass painting on wine glasses and other fun stuff such as my 151 Rum dispenser (actually an oil bottle with spigot) and painted it with a volcano and I've painted glass lamp globes with jungle stuff and palm trees to cut down on tiki light bar glare.

Even so, I hesitated heating the mugs because of the decal so spent 3 days "candling" the mugs at 25-degree increments for 4 hours each to make sure they wouldn't break when heated, and practiced on ONE mug painting trim, it came out way too glossy so got a French glass paint product called "cloud" and added it to the black glass paint, did the other two, and it gave me a decent matte finish. Ok, they aren't as good as original, but passable. I didn't know I could scrape off the bad paint job on the blue one with a razor blade, is that before or after I bake it??

Thank you for helping Wendy, it's nice to know there are helpers out there during a tiki crisis!
Tiki Joy to All!
LavaLounger