Bubbles, Bubbles and more flippin Bubbles……

[Gary Birch]

Darren
Are you supporting the board either side of the laminator. I think that that may be where your problem lies.

Cheers

Gary

[Darren Lawlor]

Hi gary,

The only support is a person standing either side holding the board…

Is this enough??

I am guessing not!!

Do I need to build a bench on both sides of the Laminator??

Darren,

[Peter Munday]

Could be too much pressure.

Peter

[Darren Lawlor]

Hi Peter,

You are correct about the pressure. I know it is pretty high as you can see the Corrri give way dramatically under the weight of the top roller. I never adjusted it as i was under the impression the the more weight the better the application.

I obviously aint got a clue and need to hang up my boots……….

Can you tell me is there a rough guide or a kind of hand feely touchy type way of knowing that the pressure is sufficient. Running test peices through is not an option as how can I run an 8×4 test piece through….seeing as these are the ones are giving me trouble

Darren…

[Gary Birch]

quote Darren Lawlor:

Hi gary,

The only support is a person standing either side holding the board…

Is this enough??

I am guessing not!!

Do I need to build a bench on both sides of the Laminator??

Darren,

We used to have the same problems and I think it was Shane Drew who suggested it. We have no issues at all now although we use an ezytaper not a laminator but the principal remains the same.

Cheers

Gary

[Peter Munday]

When setting you need to just pinch the material between the rollers, my laminator has a manual setting and I lower it until it touches the material and then a quarter turn no more.

Peter

[David Rowland]

we have a read out, for 5mm board, 5mm gap we use…. i will say we sometimes have problems

our laminator top bar has springs each side when you remove the covers, so keeping it to board size or board size minus 1-2mm should do the trick

[Darren Lawlor]

Mine is also a manual setting. I have it so tight that there is no way in hell the you could push the corri through the gap and when you run it through using the foot pedal the yo can see the corri compress hugely between the rollers..

Too Tight??? Just a Tadd Maybe!! 😀

Darren,

[Stephen Morriss]

My laminator has a manual pressure setting and I generally go for about 1/2 turn after touching, can’t get 4ft in it though only 42"

You’ll need more pressure as the width goes up as it’s more of a pressure per square mm thing.

Kind of funny how it’s happening after 5ft though so may be more to do with support in and out of the laminator

Steve

[Darren Lawlor]

Later today I am going to try and organise some support both sides of the machine.

Also, do you guys reckon that I am too heavy with the pressure based on the fact that you can physically see the corri board compress heavily between the rollers??

Darren.

[Richard Wills]

Method that works with our JetMounter JM44:
cut five bits of substrate – 4"x10"
raise (manual, cold) top roller, insert five bits evenly spaced across the nip, then bring down roller, until you feel it bite
raise left and right wheels, around a quarter to an eigth turn, until you feel the "slack" give
twiddle with the five "bits" to check that pressure is the same across all five bits – a bit of finger tip pressure works well with the more expensive (Drytac Facemount) adhesive.

THEN
Get the micrometer out, and check across the width of the substrate. If problems come in at 5′ mark, cut down the "bubble zone" and measure the thickness across the board. Odds are that you have a batch of lemons.
We had 20 8×4′ sheets of 5mm foamaluckless delivered, which varied by almost 1mm from edges to centre. Was within manufacturers tolerances (+/-10% from memory), that was useless for our photo mounting purposes (bloody bubbles every where). Manufacturer’s rep came out, checked measurements, and said, yep, within published tolerances.

Needless to say, we never ordered Mett Brartin F***luckless, from the distributor. Shame they stopped doing Forex, as we never had any problems with that, from them, and they did package the sheets up beautifully in two man carriable card.

Just got a carp batch of Forex which bubbles when laminated lengthways… fortunately the job lets us cut 41" strips and go down the short edge.

Nip down to Maplins and get a micrometer – twenty or thirty quid. Might not be up to ISO standards, but its relative measurements will show you errors in media thickness.

Sorry, rant over.

Excess pressure does not help you get an even lamination (in my very limited experience). Problems with substrate can cause you hours of pain.

Oh ,and the good fellows at Drytac Hot press did recommend that we have the entry table to the laminator slightly higher than the machine, with exit table Slightly lower.

[Matt Boyd]

this is how we do it.>>>>
release the top roller so you have a gap. now if your doing coro, put a piece in and wind the top roller down so it is just touching the coro…read JUST touching the coro. then turn the pressure 180 degrees on each side.
for normal material, laminating a print for example, again release the top roller so your starting fresh, put in the material and lower the top roller so its just touching the material and turn the pressure 90 degrees.