We need at least a heat press to cure Pretreatment / ink or both a heat press and a "tunnel" conveyor oven. The temperature of heat press must be available as high as 200C / 392F.
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 Heat Press: Pretreatment and Ink
To cure our Pretreatment, we need a heat press for enough heat (356F / 180C) and pressure, and also the way to release steam out within 35 seconds.
Our Pretreatment has two types of chemicals; one is "glue" to make
thin film on the surface of the T-shirt, and the other is "fixer"
to cohere white ink quickly on the surface of the T-shirt, which
is a little wet and sticky.
You may feel 180C / 356F is too high for your garment, but high temperature is necessary to melt the glue inside. So when you print on thinner garment or "easy-to-burn" tote bags, make the curing time shorter, much better than lower the temperature, e.g. 27-30 seconds with 180C / 356F.
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 Use "parchment" (Teflon® coated sheet) with heat press to make the surface as flat as possible, and to prevent the ink removed. |
Do not use conveyor oven to cure Pretreatment, film and fixer could spread inside and the white ink should not be printed on the surface. Refer here for your further information.
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 "Tunnel" Conveyor Oven: recommended for White Print
We recommend using "tunnel" conveyor oven to curing ink, especially with white ink.
Because we print much more white ink plus color ink is on the surface
of the T-shirt, not inside of the fiber, printed ink may move
easier with the heat press. Heat press can also flattened the surface and give it a glitter
and sticky like rubber looking print.
The settings of conveyor oven may be different, depending on the
size, mechanism, conveyor speed control, etc. But the temperature should be at least 160C / 320F to melt "glue" inside the ink. Also we need 3 minutes or more.
The following values are just for your information: those are the results of our machines in our lab. Please check your machines by the print result.
  Tunnel Conveyor Oven : 3-4 minutes (depends on machine). |
e.g. 3 minutes 30 seconds for Adult L T-shirt,
3 minutes for small towels.
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closed-type oven (like the one in the kitchen): 5 minutes
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Depending on the material, curing conditions may vary, be sure to test new materials before you use. Some garment may be decolorized by pretreatment, some white and light-colored garment may also burn easier depending on the brand.
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