Need Help Need help selecting laminator used only for applying transfer tape

[ikarasu]

We had a job where we needed to laminate about 30 rolls last year.

I bought one of those manual crank hand laminators off eBay for $100 - and then I mounted the roll of premask above the manual laminator. That then fed into the manual laminator... And we put the vinyl through and just rolled the manual laminator.

It worked great - kind of a manual way to do it vs a roll laminator. What helped was we could adjust the pressure on both sides of the roller... So if it started to crinkle due to uneven pressure from too much being cut out of one side, we could loosen it up a bit so it became smooth again and keep going. We'd get 50-75 ft before it'd crinkle, then it'd take a foot or so to become perfect again after we adjusted it. Then we just carefully lifted the crinkled area and fixed it once we were done.

We were using a vinyl with a synthetic backer, which is a pain to premask on our laminator.

So if a real laminator doesn't work, might be worth looking into a manual that's more adjustable

 

[victor bogdanov]

We had a job where we needed to laminate about 30 rolls last year.

I bought one of those manual crank hand laminators off eBay for $100 - and then I mounted the roll of premask above the manual laminator. That then fed into the manual laminator... And we put the vinyl through and just rolled the manual laminator.

It worked great - kind of a manual way to do it vs a roll laminator. What helped was we could adjust the pressure on both sides of the roller... So if it started to crinkle due to uneven pressure from too much being cut out of one side, we could loosen it up a bit so it became smooth again and keep going. We'd get 50-75 ft before it'd crinkle, then it'd take a foot or so to become perfect again after we adjusted it. Then we just carefully lifted the crinkled area and fixed it once we were done.

We were using a vinyl with a synthetic backer, which is a pain to premask on our laminator.

So if a real laminator doesn't work, might be worth looking into a manual that's more adjustable

I have a highway handyman that with the premask attachment, it's inconsistent, sometimes it'll do 20ft perfectly and then starts wrinkling. I think it has something to do with the designs of the weeded vinyl. I messed around with it for a few weeks and gave up.

On the flatbed first hint of wrinkling we just lift up the roller a bit, bring back down and goes on perfect

 

[ikarasu]

Its the same reason you get wrinkles if your laminator isn't perfectly even.


When stuff is weeded away, your roll is no longer perfectly flat - if you leave an inch or two on each side that's unweeded, it helps it have equal pressure. That's another thing we've done before.... We cut everything in boxes and leave 2" on each side. That doesn't work with everything since you'll be wasting 10% of your vinyl.... But if you're cuts fit within 25", leaving a bit on the sides helps.

Same theory with when you're applying vinyl to signs on a flatbed laminator, they tell you to use a long piece the same thickness on the other side of the table so that the roller has equal pressure on both sides.


And why the manual hand crank laminators work so well with premask - they take forever to mount signs because you have to manually twist both sides to raise it up, then down onto your substrate before you can mount. But in the case of premask.... Once you notice a side is starting to lose tension, you can either tighten it, or loosen the other side until you're tensions are equal and the pre mask is taught against the roll again.

It's not a perfect solution, but it's a cheap one. I say give it a go with the manual, if it works for you, i believe there are electric laminators that use the same setup, theoretically you could turn it to auto and just adjust the pressure on each side in realtime and never have to stop it.


It's been awhile and I was only involved.in the setup, but I believe we had someone grab the premasked vinyl after it was fed through a few ft, then they just walked to the other end of the warehouse and it premasked a good 50-100 ft at a time..it was less work than the hand crank!

 

[Tim de Beir]

Speed applicator is your go bought this 5 Months ago huge time saver

 

[jfiscus]

I have a couple of questions on this.
How do you feed the beginning of the next sheet into the laminator? Mine almost always catches one side before the other, or worse, both sides but not the center, which causes tunneling. Do you open the nip? Seems to be the only way to guarantee it feeding true.
Why do you mask rolls of unweeded vinyl? I've tried to get out of weeding something delicate by masking and installing first, figuring to weed it after it's applied, but I always regret it.

Signtline answered the questions about feeding above in his post, but I wanted to answer your other question about masking unweeded vinyl. We do a decent amount of striping/pinstriping here since we have our own slitter. You want striping masked for installation so that it doesn't stretch as your applying it.

For loading the machines we use two hands (one on each side) to load the laminator, and the foot pedal to get it started. Takes a few tries to get the hang of it, then you get it correct pretty much every time. Be careful though using a foot pedal to start a laminator, they USUALLY defeat/override the eye sensors, so it CAN grab your fingers.

 

[garyroy]

Speed applicator? That's sounds great.
Is that item even available in the US?

 

[JBurton]

Takes a few tries to get the hang of it

I had enough tries to the point that I gave up. Now if I have a second person, I'll open the rollers, pass the material under to the them, and have them hold with some tension as I close the nip. I can do this solo, but it's more frustrating.
And yes, pinstriping is hilarious when not masked (or painted on). I did a record board for a school, spent hours laying down 1/4" stripes with a tape measure. Took a step back and crapped my pants at how awful it looked. It wouldn't have been so bad but I had done the whole 8'x12' during the evening, so nobody walked out and said 'this looks like dogsh*t' like usual. Also I was about 16, so rocking out on my ipod and not seeing the forest for the trees. I caught so much sh*t for it going from 6' of 2' black vinyl to something like 50' of 2' black.

 

[Evan Gillette]

We run a royal sovereign (they are pretty much out of business from what I hear) and do lots of variety with it. Most of our transfer taping is short (less than 10') pieces of 24"or 30" material and I think it works very well. If you want to message me I would be happy to show you our setup.