help with laminating

[Peter Munday]

Barry are you using heat? if so turn it off 😀
Peter

[Shane Drew]

what sort of laminator?

[Kev Mayger]

Could be a couple of things. To much pressure from the top roller. To much tension on the laminate. Release take-up to fast.

Kev

[Dempsey]

I work for the Sign and Display Division of the Robert Horne Group and can have our Lamination Specialist call you if you would like to email me
(mod-edit)

We can post the results later for all to see.

[Andrew Marshall]

I don’t know if you have sorted your lamination problem yet but we had the same problem with Hexis, On our Mactac Laminator there is a backing paper which runs underneath the print to stop it sticking to the rollers, this was creasing first thus making the print crease, so we now don’t use the backing paper and its perfect everytime

Andy

[Paul Hodges]

quote marshy:

I don’t know if you have sorted your lamination problem yet but we had the same problem with Hexis, On our Mactac Laminator there is a backing paper which runs underneath the print to stop it sticking to the rollers, this was creasing first thus making the print crease, so we now don’t use the backing paper and its perfect everytime

Andy

Andy,

We are having the same problem with our new laminator, i think it’s a GMP excelam cold laminator (i think thats what it’s called) we got it with our new versacamm.
the only way i can see of eliminating that backing paper problem is to make sure your laminate is not as wide a roll as your printed media, but thats not always possible. how did you get around that?

also we’re not getting quite as good a finish as we would like, with dust particles getting trapped etc. do you have a procedure for cleaning your prints off succesfully before laminating etc?

Paul

[Andrew Marshall]

Hi Paul, what i now do is use a 3mm foamex to feed the beginning of the laminate into the rollers as normal until it pops out the other end and then stop it. Without the backing paper you will now have the laminate touching the rollers, in effect stuck to the roller. At this point you can feed your print through. YOU MUST HAVE SOMEONE PULLING FROM THE OTHER END TO STOP THE PRINT WRAPPING AROUND THE ROLLER. taking away the backing paper does make it a lot flatter
I hope this helps

Andy

[Andrew Marshall]

Sorry i forgot to mention the dust particles. Prior to the print going through i use a tack cloth/rag which you use in the paint industry for pre-painting. I just wipe the print as it goes through end to end and it should keep the dust down.
You mentioned that you have a cold laminator, you would definately get better results with a heated version taking away any ‘silvering’ on the finished print

[Paul Hodges]

quote marshy:

Hi Paul, what i now do is use a 3mm foamex to feed the beginning of the laminate into the rollers as normal until it pops out the other end and then stop it. Without the backing paper you will now have the laminate touching the rollers, in effect stuck to the roller. At this point you can feed your print through. YOU MUST HAVE SOMEONE PULLING FROM THE OTHER END TO STOP THE PRINT WRAPPING AROUND THE ROLLER. taking away the backing paper does make it a lot flatter
I hope this helps

Andy

Cheers for that Andy, we’ll try the 3mm trick.
As for the machine being a cold laminator, we didn’t get a choice, it came as a package deal from Roland with the new Versacamm, i just assumed they would put a laminator in the deal that was good enough to do the job properly. The silvering i can live with because like Shane said in the other thread, it does tend to disappear, but the dust is what’s really ruining it for us at the moment.

I’m going to try the tack rags, although we did wipe down a print this morning just prior to feeding it into the laminator only to find stuff trapped on it yet again, so i think we have more of a static problem really with this.

Have you found any successful ways of cleaning prints down with anti static products at all?

Thanks for the help.

Paul

[Andrew Marshall]

Yeh, we feel a bit let down by our laminator aswell. I had to make a few modifications to it to make it run better.
As far as cleaning the prints down with an anti static product first is something i haven’t tried due to using eco-solvent ink which can scratch or mark easier. I generally find that the tack rag is quite good. You just need to be careful to keep your print away from dirty benches and make sure your floor is well swept. I use an antistatic sweeping ‘mop’ which we purchased from Arco to keep the floor dust free and generally keep my printing studio clean and away from any other production.

Andy

[Paul Hodges]

Andy, sounds like you’ve got a better environment for your laminating then we have. Our printer and laminator are both in our studio which is basically a carpeted office. Unfortunately, the next room along is the workshop where the guys use the table saw and other cutting equipment.

We’re not really getting creasing now, it’s just that even when the print appears to be clean, by the time it comes out the other side of the laminator it has specks trapped in it here and there.

It’s annoying because although our in house printing is of a higher quality than what trade suppliers were giving us, our laminating finish is not as good as the trade suppliers, so i find it interesting to hear what everyone else’s laminating results are like.

[Alex Crosbie]

Hi there
i have the same package as you guys (versacamm sp-300v and GMP excelam laminator) have had a few teething problems getting the hang of the laminator. mostly with adjusting the tension correctly. the only thing i did was follow the instructions that came with the machine and then play with it!

although unlike you im using the metamark vinyl and metamark laminate(although had no difference with the laminate that came with the machine).

i have my printer in a carpeted office/studio environment and the laminator out in a vehicle graphics fitting bay however i dont use any wood in any of my signs (so no nasty saw dust!) and the office is vaccumed regularly. it is inevitable that at some stage you will get a hair or some dust in a print but havent had a customer complain yet!

do you have a stand for your laminator or is mounted on a bench or on the floor? i did get a lot of dust when i used the laminator on the floor to laminate some 5mm foamex boards.

as a side point the metamark laminate roll widths are exactly the same as the roll width for the versacamm sp300! partly the reason why metamark is the recommended supplier for the versacamm range!

hope this is of some use!
regards
alex

[Paul Hodges]

Alex,

our laminator is on a stand, at this point we’re not getting too bad results actually, we’ve cut the dust down by hanging the prints in a cleaner environment prior to laminating.

what is more of a problem now is just handling the printed sheets without bending or creasing them so i think ideally, a table or bench would be better to lay the prints on whilst feeding them into the laminator, and preferably out the other side or it gets difficult to keep a large printed sheet flat.

it’s all very well doing small prints, one at a time but if you want to nest jobs and be as economical as possible, then you have to print large sheets

[John Simpson]

Paul,…….do you have a take up roll on your printer?

L J

[Paul Hodges]

John, we don’t have a take up roll yet on the actual printer, it’s more a case of handling the prints as they go through the laminator, ideally you need to feed them in flat and they need to come out flat the other side or they can crease when they fold up. are other people using flat benches with their laminators?

[John Simpson]

Paul, The ideal situation is to have a table each side of your laminator but most of us don’t have the room for two tables.
I had a brainwave with my machine, to save room at the front i used a pair of cheap Axle Stands. My printer has a take up reel so all i do after printing is to take off the take up reel & put it on the axle stands (which need a slight modification to stop the pole falling off the stands)
I have a 8′ x 6′ ally table at the back of the machine. I always send a 5mm foam board through 1st (I don’t have any 3 mm) to make sure the clear is going through OK, once it’s almost through i feed the print vinyl on top of the last few inches of foam board (no need to attach with masking tape as the roller grab the vinyl).
Once the foam board goes through you let go of peddle & lower the roller down till it stops, then carry on sending it through.

I always leave about 12″ of vinyl blank before starting too print & the same after finishing printing before cutting off the roll, this blank is what you feed onto the last few inches of foam board.

As the print is feeding through the lam Mach try using, of all things, a feather duster as the stick or handle is long enough to stop you leaning over the print & therefore risking loosing a hair or two from yourself.

The mod to the axle stands only needs to be something like two squares of steel approx 3″ x 3″ welded to each edge of the existing “wings” of the stands (the bits that stop the car axle from slipping off the stands). All you are doing is highering these wings so that when you have acquired a pole to put through a cardboard tube that is same width as your print (you re print is wound onto the cardboard tube)

I sit the stands about a metre or two in front of the Machine to feed through OK.

Sorry this has been long winded, hope you understand all this, if you require any elaboration just yell.

L J

[Paul Hodges]

Yes, I’m starting to get the picture with what you’re doing, I though there might be people out there doing these kind of modifications. what kind of results do you normally get?

[John Simpson]

the results i get now that i send my two girls to do the job are far better.
usually they have more patience than me 😳

L J