|
Selecting The Right Laminator It's wise to be discriminating when |
||
| What should my laminator do continued
... One pass mounting and hot laminating. Many images are going to be mounted, so you'll save a lot of labor and wasted material associated with changing machine setups if you can simultaneously hot laminate and mount, using either cold or hot mounting adhesives. (Yes, cold mounting adhesives can be applied with heat. The heat doesn't have any adverse effects and will generally improve adhesion.) Cold lamination. Many experienced, high-volume digital-imaging shops say they don't need cold lamination. Others avoid setup changes on their larger, multi-purpose machines by buying a cold laminator exclusively for mounting and occasional cold-laminating needs. In my opinion, few digital imaging shops can work cost-effectively with cold lamination alone. If you do buy a cold laminator for mounting, look for one with a release-liner take up feature. A release-liner take up is not necessary when applying one-liner mounting adhesives to mounting board, but a take-up is needed to apply overlaminates or the kinds of double-liner adhesives most often used for face mounting on glass or clear acrylic. Electrostatic output. Shops with electrostatic printers will be able to produce a greater volume of images, so their general finishing requirements will differ just a bit. E-stat graphics producers will probably need to put a roll of images on the laminator and laminate the whole works in one non-stop process, separating the images after they are laminated. Transfers. Producers of e-stat graphics most likely will also want to use their laminator to transfer electrostatic images to vinyl for banners, fleet graphics and other applications. Once you have determined which transfer process your shop will use, make sure your laminating equipment has sufficient heat and pressure capabilities. |
What kind of equipment is available? In your search for the right machine, here are some of the general types of laminators you may encounter: Double-sided thermal laminators designed for the digital market. Reflecting the diverse needs of digital imaging applications, these machines generally will handle hot or cold mounting and different cold laminating film applications. When operating as thermal laminators, the laminating rollers pull the heat-activated film from tensioned supply rolls onto a heated surface and then into the laminating nip (the pressure line where the two rollers meet and the lamination takes place). There are two general types of these imaging laminator/mounters: hot shoe and hot roller. The differences between these two are in the nature of the heated surface that activates the film. In a hot shoe machine, the heating surfaces are fixed parts (the shoes), which heat both the film and the surface of the rollers. In a hot roller laminator, the heat to activate the film comes from within the laminating roller itself. Double-sided thermal laminators designed for general-purposed hot laminating. These may or may not be suitable for particular digital imaging applications. Some of the very inexpensive units may not be good even for general purpose laminating, much less for the more demanding world of digital image finishing. Single-sided thermal laminators designed for the digital market. These can handle hot and cold mounting, but they cannot encapsulate. Cold laminators. Few of these are made specifically for digital imaging, because the requirements of cold laminating in digital graphics are not that different from the laminating needs in conventional graphics. Click here to learn "What are the most common buying mistakes?" |
|