Insta-Cure Curing Tips
A new and simple test has been devised to help all of our Insta-Cure customers to know that the finished Insta-Cure job is fully cured.
First, bring your scotch tape over to your thermography machine. Virtually everyone has scotch tape (not cellophane) around the office. Tear off a piece, and fold on end over so you will have a "tab" to pull it off the paper. Stick the tape over some lettering of your Insta-Cure job, press down and rub it back and forth several times real hard. Then peel off the tape as quickly and forcibly as you can without tearing the tape.
The tape test will show you if it is cured or not! If any letters come up with the tape, then your job is not fully cured! Run it through the thermography machine again. It indicates that the speed you ran it through on your thermography machine was TOO FAST. You need to SLOW DOWN the belt speed to about 40% that of regular thermography for it to cure correctly. Also, if your job comes up looking dull or rough, then it is NOT cured! It is telling you to run it through your machine again at a SLOWER SPEED. It should look fairly glossy and smooth when run correctly, not rough. The general rule of thumb on heat and speed for Insta-Cure is this:
The LONGER the heat tunnel (or machine), the faster you can run it. The SMALLER the machine, the slower and cooler you will want to run it.
If it is fully cured, your tape WILL come up CLEAN with no letters! Some paper fibers may be pulled up with the tape, but as long as there are NO LETTERS on it, you are safe to give it to your customer. We are discouraging the "fingernail test" in favor of the tape test because it appears easier to duplicate as a standardized measurement from one user to another.
HOT IRON TEST: When first learning to use Insta-Cure, you will also want to try the "hot iron" test. Using an inexpensive hobby iron, put the job between two pieces of paper and rub the hot iron over it on HIGH. This will tell you it is cured all the way through. If it is run TOO HOT or with too much ink, the INSTA-Cure forms a thin skin on the top, while underneath it is still gooey. If this is the case, run it through your machine again SLOWER and turn DOWN the heat as well! You do not have to scorch the paper or even come close. Remember that it is TIME spent in the heat tunnel that is more than high heat!
We would like to remind you that when running an Insta-Cure image in the laser printer or copier that the image to be printed NOT be overlaid onto the thermographed image! Make sure it is properly justified (pass this on to your customers), before copying. This is because an overprinted image may release small quantities of toner on the feed rollers of a copy machine and a "ghost image" may appear on other areas until it is clean.
Overall it appears that virtually all of the Insta-Cure printed samples we have received so far as having problems (not fully cured) were simply because they were run through the thermography unit TOO FAST or TOO HOT. Remember to SLOW DOWN the speed, and apply the tape test. Once you have accomplished this and have the optimum settings set for your machine, you will have no trouble running cured Insta-Cure jobs time after time.