CURED RUBBER ARTICLE MARKING APPARATUS CONSISTING OF ELECTRONICALLY CONTROLLED THERMAL TRANSFER PRINTER, CUTTER, CURING MOULD AND SCANNER

An apparatus and method for supplying a graphic label that is readable with a light scanning device with such label placed on a rubber article. The graphic bar code label is optically interpreted with a bar code reader. Thus, the cured substrate with the label with the graphic message is produced by using thermal transfer techniques. For this purpose, the ribbon in contact with the substrate passes by a print head and the ink can be selectively heated with this operation being synchronized by computer operation. When the ribbon is stripped away, the ink is left where heating occurred on the substrate material. The printed substrate exits and is cut to produce labels of desired length. The label is placed on a cured or curable article and the label and substrate are subjected to curing conditions to effect transfer of the label to the cured substrate which may now contain the message in solely, alphanumeric, bar codes, human readable characters, and logos or mixtures of them. The bar code message is normally printed as a series of vertical bars and spaces of varying widths to supply the message in readable form with the light reflected from the series of varying width bars and spaces.