# cure probs



## cucuy (Jul 12, 2015)

Ok, i have a little buddy 2 without the heat control. Long story short, my knob for the speed was off, and i realized this and fixed it. I had already ran a few shirts, and checked the temp With a gun. It was humid so i reran them, as i had also failed to pretreat these shirts. Now after i fixed the knob and slowed dryer down more, and reran shirts, im starting to see cracking from hell on these. I looked into over-curing and i hear conflicting opinions on the matter. I always had thought the print would look burnt and melted and start shriveling up with the shirt getting scorched if the inks overcured. Idk. I guess my question is, if i do a rub test and these shirts are infact over cured, will they still flake off? You know, like as if its undercured? Also, if its cracking from over curing, would heat pressing it remelt the ink together or am i just screwed and have to reprint?


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## Jinxplay (May 18, 2014)

im not sure if youre talking about screen print or DTG, you could always print on a bad tee and do your test in screen print there a lot of factors to consider like the type of ink, thickness,airflow, etc..

This vid will help you out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJZwkXSkEOc


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## cucuy (Jul 12, 2015)

Screen printing, union diamond white, on black 100% cotton


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## artlife (Jan 15, 2010)

cucuy said:


> Ok, i have a little buddy 2 without the heat control. Long story short, my knob for the speed was off, and i realized this and fixed it. I had already ran a few shirts, and checked the temp With a gun. It was humid so i reran them, as i had also failed to pretreat these shirts. Now after i fixed the knob and slowed dryer down more, and reran shirts, im starting to see cracking from hell on these. I looked into over-curing and i hear conflicting opinions on the matter. I always had thought the print would look burnt and melted and start shriveling up with the shirt getting scorched if the inks overcured. Idk. I guess my question is, if i do a rub test and these shirts are infact over cured, will they still flake off? You know, like as if its undercured? Also, if its cracking from over curing, would heat pressing it remelt the ink together or am i just screwed and have to reprint?


Screen printing doesn't require any pretreatment so not sure what's going on there.
Overcure you may not see any issue with the garment itself especially a black cotton. The ink will look uneven, may be shiny in spots, it may not flake or crack but it likely won't stretch (it'll be stiff). It can cause excessive dye migration (take on shirt color).

If you don't have a temp control, what did you heat gun or heat strips say? Humidity won't be that big of a deal. I'm in FL and the humidity is sometimes an issue with screens and equipment but not cure.

I agree with the other person who said do a test print- do a few test prints (doesn't have to be on the black shirt) and get your belt speed set. If they are only cracking and nothing else seems wrong (they look normal until you stretch them) then they may be still not cured. The stretch test is also not the most reliable test.


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## artlife (Jan 15, 2010)

A heat press can smooth out a rough print, it will soften the ink some to do this. But the ink is either cured or not, I suppose you could cure with the heat press if you think there is something wrong with the dryer. you'd need the time and temperature set for it.


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## cucuy (Jul 12, 2015)

So if it is cracking, it is absolutly not cured, or over cured? And by pretreating i mean running it thru the dryer before printing.


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## cucuy (Jul 12, 2015)

ya, see i am hearing different things about OVER CURING ink. I am trying to figure out if it is cracking, is that only an indication of not fully cured? If I do a rub test and it flakes, is that only an indication for it not being cured? and Is the only way to know if it is over cured by it looking like a sticker, all shiny and stiff?


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## Printor (Apr 16, 2015)

Union diamond white, if you printed/flash/printed, if cured all the way, after it has cooled for a minute or two, should be able to pass a gnarly stretch test, over curing it will probably burn the shirt. overcuring if you didn't burn shirt will crack in the wash eventually, but not sooner than many other brands that were cured just right. That is awesome ink and your first priority for now should be passing the stretch test while you fine tune your process. once it is cracked, its cracked forever.Under cured, the client is probably gone forever


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## Printor (Apr 16, 2015)

cucuy said:


> Screen printing, union diamond white, on black 100% cotton


Try Union cotton white for all your cotton. I use it on a lot of 50/50s too. I gotta watch out for bright greens/bues and especially RED! Go straight to the diamond for red. It is usualy softer, and can handle super curing. If you think your over curing, run a white shirt through, If it doesn't yellow on the high spots, Turn the heat up a hair, slow the belt down a hair. if it still doesn't scorch, don't worry about overcuring for now


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## cucuy (Jul 12, 2015)

Ok, ordered the heat control from bbc. The info provided before i bought it was a little misleading, as i assumed that thered be more actual CONTROL. i am use to using the dryers with the digital readout screens telling you the themp. Anyway, so I have since installed it and am running my first job with the new set up. The guy at bbc suggested i run it at 100%. (The dial on the heat control goes from 0-100%--- the dial on the speed goes 0-10). And to have the shirt be in the tunnel o' heat as i like to call it, for 30-40 seconds, and to adjust my speed from there. The adjusting of the heat would be for athletic wear/poly/triblends things of that nature. Now i have a new question along the same lines. 

I have been taught up till now to just make sure the ink cures, and thats with a temp gun as it comes out reading 320ish. Whats with this 30 second stuff? Does the entire shirt have to bake in there for that long or do i start timing when the print enters there? And what if my shirt is in there for around 30 seconds and comes out at close to 400 degrees? is this too high? Whats the safety zone of cure temps and if this is too high do i turn the heat down or just go ahead and speed up? 

Sorry for sounding annoying and paranoid, i am just running into a series of stupid problems i thought i had figured out already.


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## uWantitWear (Nov 4, 2010)

I am right there with ya Cucuy... been screen printing 15 years and still cant get every job right.

My isn't flaking, and it isn't happening to every shirt... very frustrating.


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## Printor (Apr 16, 2015)

Is there any way to post a pic of a flaking shirt. After thinking about it, I've never seen a Union product flake...... only crack, blister, burn, puff or wash off.


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## Ripcord (Sep 2, 2006)

If it cracks when you stretch it, it's undercured. Despite what I've read, I don't believe there is such a thing as overcuring ink, unless it gets so hot that it boils, in which case the shirt would probably scorch as well. There won't be any dye migration on (most) 100% cotton shirts, camouflage excepted.

I'm glad you got the temperature control for the Little Buddy. Your shirts really should be in the chamber for at least a minute. It's not only temperature, time is important too. Kind of like baking bread.

Also this dryer is so small that if you take laser readings you'll find that the center of the print gets considerably hotter than the edges. You need to adjust the temperature so that the edges get to the full cure temp. With a big print this can mean baking the living daylights out of it, but if it's under 380 (I've gotten readings of 400 on white shirts with no scorching...) you'll be fine. I usually go for a reading of about 350 in the middle and 335 on the edges. I'd rather not learn the hard way that 200 shirts were undercured.

One more thing. With a small dryer you will notice a decrease in temperature reading as you send shirts through. This is because the shirts carry heat out of the dryer. So you can't just take a reading off the first shirt and assume all the rest will be the same. I take temperature readings numerous times throughout a press run and that is another reason the temperature control is indispensable.


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## Printor (Apr 16, 2015)

My dryer has 6 feet of heat panels and still drops in temp a little when full of shirts


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## Printor (Apr 16, 2015)

Actually, it's more like 5 feet of panels, just stuck my head in there, haven't shop vac't it out in a while. which reminds me, I haven't shop vac't it out in a while. I should...probably go do that...pretty furry.


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