Therm-O-Type Foil Fusing Starter Kit with 2 Foil Colors and Optional Foil Cutter & Work Station

Attach the infeed tray. Make sure the main power is off. Forward/Off/Reverse should be Off. Impression lever in off position. Turn on main power. Set speed to 20%. Set temp. to 80%. Allow 15 min. to heat up. Loosen hubs on foil shaft. Remove foil support shaft. Install foil on support shaft. Be sure: Foil is oriented correctly, hub blades are engaged with foil roll, roll positioned correctly side to side. Do not overtighten screws. Pull about 15" from foil roll. Use card stock to push foil through fuser. Foil must be under stripper roller. Move switch to forward. Lower impression lever. Allow foil to ?track" through fuser. Raise lever. If foil does not stop, increase tension here. Set paper side guide. Run a test sheet and check for quality. Thin papers require less heat at a given speed. Thick papers require more heat at a given speed. 80 lb. sample sheet being run. If tips of letters missing foil ? machine is going too slow or temperature too high. Incomplete foil transfer in solid areas ? running too fast or temperature too low. Check quality from lead edge to tail edge of sheet. Speed may need to be reduced to ensure quality across the sheet. To remove waste foil, cut foil & remove rewind shaft. Remove clamping bar, slide waste foil off shaft. Re-install the rewind shaft. Re-install the clamping bar.

This is How to Foil Laminate!

For those who are new to this, we’ll first go over the basic steps. We also highly encourage everyone to view our written knowledge base article.

Here’s the supplies you’ll need: your laminating foil, some scissors, a project printed with a laser printer, a carrier, and finally a pouch laminator.

First, open your carrier and place your project inside. Now take your foil and cut it appropriately to cover the correct portion of your project.

Take that piece and rest it in its position.

If you have other colors and places to fill, continue to do so.

It’s important to cover the printed portions of your project that you do not want to foil. If you don’t then some of the print will transfer onto your carrier and make a mess on other later projects.

Now insert the carrier into the laminator. It’s best to either hold or get something to keep the project flat so that the foil does not fall from within the carrier.

When it’s done, remove the carrier from the back, open it up and proceed to peal off the foil and uncover your project.

Now chances are you’ll see spots in your foiled project, which means we have to go over steps for quality control.

I wish there was an easy one-and-done way to get the best quality—but there are so many factors in play that it’s going to take some trial and error on your part.

So first, when printing you have to print on a laser printer, no other printers will work. The foil adheres best with solid black projects—if you have colors, convert them to black or don’t laminate them. This also means no gradients or opaqueness. And it’s best to use vector based images—texts are vector based, and programs like Adobe Illustrator create vector based art.

The smoother the paper, the better your results. And as long as you can print it in your printer you will be able to foil it.

For choosing a laminator, it should have temperature controls for 10 mil, but preferable one that you can set the actual temperature manually to 300 degrees fahrenheit or higher. Slow down your laminator, too. And make sure the throat of your laminator is large enough to fit your projects!

When you choose not to foil part of your project, cover it with paper to avoid ink transferring onto your carrier and ruining future projects. And we’ve found that for some reason, some foils just adhere better than others.

Not every printer toner provides the best results. Some toners adhere better than others, and printers with a high dots per inch(DPI) will provide smoother edges and nicer results.

For serious professional foiling, check out foil fusers and foil stamping machines—these are expensive, commercial usage machines. Follow this information and you should be able to achieve some great looking foil laminated projects!