DELAMINATION ANYBODY SUFFERING

[Steve Lamb]

Chris

Are you using machine laminator or by hand? Also which film is it?

Lamby

[Chris Wool]

yes by hand as always gv3 90 as before even different batch nos – real problem when given a little and i mean little stretch the laminate is tenting out – now before i have really abused this combination and always been fine.

chris

[Rodney Gold]

There is no way you can lam by hand and expect it to last or not to de lam. Cast/callendered lams HAVE to be applied using pressure rollers. Its not a matter of solvents gassing , as if this was the problem , you would have been aware of it in weeks , not months. Lams have glues encapsulated in little “coccoons” , and the high pressure bursts these and they “spread” , you can never achieve those pressures by hand or squeegee or get them to be constant over the roll or large areas. Bite the bullet and get a cold pressure laminator and use certified lams.

[Steve Lamb]

Chris

Rodney is right (as usual 🙂 ). Laminating anything by hand can be a right problem. Sound a bit strange that you have not had problems before.
Have always used the same lam film?

[Chris Wool]

thank you rodney i have been hand laminating for about 6 years but this problem has just started your right i should bit the bullet and get one but space is a bit of a problem let alone the £4000 for a decent one

chris

[Rodney Gold]

4 grand? sounds a lot of money for a cold pressure laminator. I thought you were doing versacam sized stuff? – less then 36″ wide?
I paid about 8 grand for a 1.6m wide fully puterized seperate hot and cold roller + mounting and all the bells and whistles GMP thingy that slices the bread , butters and spreads it , chews it and predigests it and all you have to do is poop it out 😉

[Chris Wool]

no got a sol jet like yours and think i want to use micronex as well hence the delemer £1500 cold or £3000 to £4000 hot i have had large format stuff for about 6 years sol jet for 2 years 1 year ago converted to ex standard

chris

[Rodney Gold]

Dont buy a hot just for micronex , its fine for small stuff , bigger stuff doesnt like the heat , even tho its lower temp than for encapsulation/hot lams , the large areas get a distinct curl or distortion
Micronex adds a slight yellow cast to to white , not a major problem with small stuff , but definately a problem with large expanses of white unless your customer is not that fussy
We do a lot of contract type lamination on posters etc , so for us it was worth while , for internal stuff unless you doing a lot of paper etc , hots are of very little use.

[Rodney Gold]

Just as an aside , coild lams add huge value to our decals , we offer an non lammed and a “tuffguarded” (cold lammed and die cut decal) at about double the cost of a a non lammed . We offer the tuffguarded as an “indestructible – 3 y warrantee at minimum ” decal and its amazing at the amount of folk that bite. For example for a 3″ x 2″ decal unlammed we came in at GBP 12 pence (decent qtys) and lammed its about 22-25 pence (costs us about 2 quid a sq meter to use a premium lam – thus less than 1 p for that label)

[Neil Riley]

quote Rodney Gold:

There is no way you can lam by hand and expect it to last or not to de lam. Cast/callendered lams HAVE to be applied using pressure rollers.

I’m wondering how many of you agree with this statement from Rodney?

Like you Chris, I’ve been hand laminating solvent prints and there’s no way you can say that it doesn’t stick well.
I apply Oraguard 215 wet, with a rubber screen printing squeegee, and it works fine. Just like applying vinyl wet or dry, in the end they both work.

I have to say that I’ve never used a laminator, so I can’t discount their attributes, and there has to be something compelling about them because eveyone who has one says it’s the only way to go.

But I just wonder if there aren’t more people out there like me who are quite happily laminating their solvent prints by hand…

[expressgraphics]

Hi Chris,
maybe the ink manufacture has “revised” the formula slightly and this is causing the problem. It’s funny how we all go along happily thinking things are the same but it’s not until there’s a problem that the manufacturers come clean about changes.
We had a problem recently with a satin paper which suddenly changed to a near gloss without warning. It printed the same but when you put it next to the old material, the difference was quite obvious. Official line was that they had changed the coating machinery and that was the way it was going to be from now on.
I’m assuming your laminating and then applying the vinyl. If it’s a cast vinyl then I’d certainly recommend using a laminator as Rodney suggests. So far we’ve had no problems with de-laminating when using Graficast and Lam040 from Grafityp. When we put this through we use a small amount of heat in the top roller (30-32 degrees) to assist the adhesive and to remove any “silvering” between the laminate and print.
I would never try and laminate outdoor prints wet, I think it’s unlikely that you would get all the water out regardless of how hard you pressed.

Regards,
John.

[Rodney Gold]

We lam large lengths , sometimes up to 20 meters of material in a go when doing contract work , apart from which we often lam stuff with texture and compliant thicknesses and there is no way we can do this by hand. Lamination materials are meant to be used by lamination machines. We web up a roll and away we go. Our laminator is a profit centre in itself as we do a lot of work for other companys with it.
Having said this , I must qualify it , our laminator cost a LOT of money (over 10k quid) and is pretty sophisticated. I have not had the problems associated with cheaper machines like boat waking , washboarding , skewness etc etc. It might be better to do it wet by hand than to get a very basic machine and to mess up the print itself cos of the machines limitations.