New Sign Department requirements??

[Robert Lambie]

self healing cutting matt.

vinyl cushion floor under printer helps keep print area easy cleaned and reduces static charge. (cheap stuff)

drying rack, although easy enough made. hanging prints is best.

white cotton gloves for handling media.

extraction fans (one pulling in air & one pulling out)

[Greg McCarthy]

Thanks Rob,

Didnt think of the drying rack 😕 Im sure I have my Michael Jackson
gloves somewhere though!

Do these SS21 Inks produce alot of fumes then?

Regards

Greg

[Martin Oxenham]

You will definitely need a laminator for signs and vehicle graphics !

[Greg McCarthy]

Thanks Martin,

Can you recommend any decent suppliers for an entry level laminator?

Ive been looking at a £450 one. Is this going rate for a cold one?

[Martin Oxenham]

I don’t know what sort of machine you could get for that price but a decent one would be 3 – 4 thousand. One with a top heated roller is the best as you will not get any silvering although this does disappear after about a day.
We have a large 54" Seal machine but have a very useful Imetre wide cold hand laminator which we use for small stuff. I know they do these in a 54" but not sure where you can get them now. If you do a seach I posted about it when we bought it. Laminating is a minefield all of its own and you can end up ruining prints until you get it right.
If you intend doing large signs and vans then get a decent one.

[David Rogers]

quote Greg McCarthy:

Thanks Martin,

Can you recommend any decent suppliers for an entry level laminator?

Ive been looking at a £450 one. Is this going rate for a cold one?

to call it a laminator is being quite kind. It’s a cold roller and they do exactly what you expect. I’ve had two of the Chinese imports paying about £700. Presently a 1600mm version and put 1000’s of metres of material through it without any issues.

You don’t get all the features of a ‘proper’ one such as media spools / waste take up so a little more time per job but they do work.

[Greg McCarthy]

Thanks Dave,

We only need it initially to mount designs onto Ali board, pvc or foamex so cant justify shelling out 3-4k for a heated one just yet.

[Martin Oxenham]

You really do need one to laminate the prints before you mount them to the boards. If you don’t you may scratch or damage the print when mounting. One of the ones david has mentioned will do both.
They are available on a well known auction site at the moment but are £750.
I have thought about getting one of these just for mounting prints to boards etc as when our laminator is set up with laminate you really don’t want to take it out again just to mount one board. When set up we like to run the whole roll.

[Kevin Busby]

I purchased an easymount 1600sh when I picked up my printer in July but have to admit I still use the old Chinese one more than the new one, only time it gets used is when printing full 1370 wide, if its 760 or a small job I still use the hand one. Not tried using the Easymount for boards yet as its to much hassle stripping it down and back again just for the odd board.

My chinese one is 1m wide with just the hand roller so very simple, very cheap £160 ish from memory but has given me less ruined prints during its life than the big one in the last 6 months lol.

Not sure I would spend that sort of money again in a hurry, had I not bought it when I did I would probably have bought the £750 one your talking about and kept the money in the bank.

Kev

[Stafford Cox]

quote Greg McCarthy:

Do these SS21 Inks produce alot of fumes then?

If you’re not used to working with solvent inks, you’ll probably notice the smell straight away. It depends on how much space the printer is in and what sort of thing you’re printing. Mimaki do a purifier/scrubber (actually made by Teka) which will reduce the smell somewhat, but they don’t eliminate it completely. If you’re going to extract to outside, try and do it as low to the ground as possible as the fumes are heavier than air and if you extract upwards, it doesn’t work quite as well. The standard foil pipework supplied with the printer is a bit flimsy and will puncture and crease quite easily in time. There’s a product called Tekflex (I think that’s how it’s spelt) which will outlast the foil stuff by far.

quote Greg McCarthy:

Can you recommend any decent suppliers for an entry level laminator?

The cheapest laminator seems to be the Easymount range. I sell Neolt laminators but they are far from being the cheapest. It might be worth looking around for a used one as there’s not much that goes wrong with them. They usually only suffer from damage to the roller which will leave an impression in your finished product.

I hope that helps.

Stafford

[Greg McCarthy]

Cheers fellas.

Happy new year to you all!!