I have printed an image with my ink jet printer, an now I want to add some foil on it, for this I need to print on top of it with a toner, however when I put the image on my laser printer it is never printing on the desired areas, there's always misalignment of 0.5/1 cm.. how can I fix this ? is there any printer that can print ink and toner at same time ? or is there any other solution to add toner ? I tried the toner pen but it wasn't a good, the best results are from a laser printer. I don't wanna do the toner on another paper and then cut it and pasted to my original paper... I want to do both on same paper. any solution ?
1 Answer
Heat reactive foil will stick to most any laser printed image; but, sticks best to black toner which has carbon particles encapsulated by the wax toner.
I would suggest that you print the whole job on the laser printer in colour with the areas you want to foil in black. Tricky registration must be done manually.
Trim the foil carefully to cover the black areas on your layout and bond the foil to the artwork with an ordinary clothes iron set to the optimal temperature determined by research and trial an error on scrap artwork. Using the manual iron rather than a roller transport in another machine will allow more precise registration.
I can't be more precise about the bonding temperature due to variations in materials and equipment. It shouldn't take you long to find the best setting. Start low and progress until the edges transfer cleanly. Residue ink can be removed from the iron between colours.
I have used this technique for different foil colours that must neatly touch on the artwork. I made a blue, red, and yellow beachball foil-stamped print using this technique.
:)Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I wish there was a "perfect registration" printer out there. But unfortunately there isn't.