Will a laminator be beneficial for us???

[peerlessdani]

Hello everyone, I am needing some help here so let me explain our situation...
The company I work for has zero experience with the large format printer we purchased and I don't have much either but here I am trying to learn...

We have a Roland TruVis VG2-540. We need it to make second surface logo stickers that will be applied on architectural windows that already have a clear protective film on them so the cling won't work, has to be adhesive. Our machine is set up with white so we can add white to the sticker over the back so that you can see it well.

My question is: Is a laminator going to be beneficial to us? Is there white laminate we can use instead of the white ink that takes a long time to dry? Then, is there a way to have it adhere to the second surface, like with a double sided laminate or something similar?

I am open to ideas as well!

Thank you so much!

 

[myront]

Nearly all prints get laminated. Get a dual press laminator. Meaning hot or cold. We use cold press 99% of the time now though. Since we have no white ink incorporated in our print set up. We can use a white adhesive vinyl to apply to 2nd surface needs. Kind of a pain to plot but it can be done. Another option would be to reach out to a third party vendor who specializes in those type of decals. Mark up the cost to cover yourself. 1 less piece of equipment to worry about.

 

[iPrintStuff]

Printing white ink is probably the easiest option if these aren’t just going to be only squares. As mentioned earlier (and this is how we do it) I have to reverse print on clear, cover the cut marks with masking tape, laminate with white vinyl then cut out the masked marks and plot those. A bit of a PITA. I’d love white ink and even with the drying time, this is probably the faster option.

we actually use our mimaki printer for plotting these as it only needs 4 reg marks. the summa barcode (albeit amazing at everything else) makes this a bit of a nightmare.

That said, anything going outside medium to long term should be laminated. Any wide format printers should have a laminator. (You can also use the laminator for mounting signage so that adds to your product list!). We pretty much laminate everything that leaves the shop, including some customers.

 

[peerlessdani]

Nearly all prints get laminated. Get a dual press laminator. Meaning hot or cold. We use cold press 99% of the time now though. Since we have no white ink incorporated in our print set up. We can use a white adhesive vinyl to apply to 2nd surface needs. Kind of a pain to plot but it can be done. Another option would be to reach out to a third party vendor who specializes in those type of decals. Mark up the cost to cover yourself. 1 less piece of equipment to worry about.

I am not sure why they bought the Roland because we already do have a vendor for stickers but they wanted to do it themselves.

 

[peerlessdani]

Printing white ink is probably the easiest option if these aren’t just going to be only squares. As mentioned earlier (and this is how we do it) I have to reverse print on clear, cover the cut marks with masking tape, laminate with white vinyl then cut out the masked marks and plot those. A bit of a PITA. I’d love white ink and even with the drying time, this is probably the faster option.

we actually use our mimaki printer for plotting these as it only needs 4 reg marks. the summa barcode (albeit amazing at everything else) makes this a bit of a nightmare.

That said, anything going outside medium to long term should be laminated. Any wide format printers should have a laminator. (You can also use the laminator for mounting signage so that adds to your product list!). We pretty much laminate everything that leaves the shop, including some customers.

The stickers we are making don't need to be rated to last more than 6-12 months and they are rectangle 20 inches long by 10 inches wide.

 

[iPrintStuff]

For 6-12 months I’d probably laminate. Or at least offer a price for either.

Honestly printing white is the way to go. You can do it all in one step.

if you’re doing it with lam white, if you don’t want to put cut marks on. Then once you’ve printed a roll of reverse labels on clear, then laminated with white, it’s pretty hard to see where all your artworks are due to the one side being the backing sheet of the clear and the other side is the top of the white vinyl. With the print hidden in the middle.

That, or if your customer is happy to accept a two part process. Reverse print on clear with no white, then just cut white vinyl out (make sure the adhesive side is also white) that’s the same size as the label. They pop the clear label up, then put the white one on top. Easy peasy.

 

[greysquirrel]

buy a GFP from a local reseller...make sure it includes training. Yes if you dipped your toe into the pond and bought a printer, you will need/want a laminator...

 

[peerlessdani]

For 6-12 months I’d probably laminate. Or at least offer a price for either.

Honestly printing white is the way to go. You can do it all in one step.

if you’re doing it with lam white, if you don’t want to put cut marks on. Then once you’ve printed a roll of reverse labels on clear, then laminated with white, it’s pretty hard to see where all your artworks are due to the one side being the backing sheet of the clear and the other side is the top of the white vinyl. With the print hidden in the middle.

That, or if your customer is happy to accept a two part process. Reverse print on clear with no white, then just cut white vinyl out (make sure the adhesive side is also white) that’s the same size as the label. They pop the clear label up, then put the white one on top. Easy peasy.

Ya sounds like printing in reverse then with white will be easier. I wonder if we even need a laminator? Is there a laminate that can be used for second surface?

 

[peerlessdani]

buy a GFP from a local reseller...make sure it includes training. Yes if you dipped your toe into the pond and bought a printer, you will need/want a laminator...

We have a company we bought our Roland from and they are suggesting a Royal Sovereign 55 inch

 

[peerlessdani]

We have a company we bought our Roland from and they are suggesting a Royal Sovereign 55 inch

and that will include install and training

 

[mark galoob]

it sounds like you bought a printer so you could make your own stickers for windows. i have to say those will be the most expensive stickers you have ever bought. you could have bought your stickers retail and still bought a truck for the amount you would have saved. unless you are making millions of stickers, you completely wasted your money. now you have to buy more equipment, deal with a huge costly learning curve, buy or build a table....pay for the software to run it, pay for the extra space to process the stickers.... and prob will end up selling that printer and laminater at a loss when its all said and done. seriously, what makes you think it was a good idea to do this.

one of our customers bought themselves a copier many years ago....they do a few hundred copies per month. so they paid 12k for a copier so they can get .01 cent copies on a few hundred copies per month. how much could they have saved if they had just paid retail for the last 10 years....copies wouldnt have cost them more than .10 cents per piece retail plus tax. so over the course of 10 yrs, say they did 10k copies, literally would have only cost 1000.00 plus tax. instead they paid an extra 11k bringing their 1k volume total to more like 100 dollars per sheet..

 

[Notarealsignguy]

it sounds like you bought a printer so you could make your own stickers for windows. i have to say those will be the most expensive stickers you have ever bought. you could have bought your stickers retail and still bought a truck for the amount you would have saved. unless you are making millions of stickers, you completely wasted your money. now you have to buy more equipment, deal with a huge costly learning curve, buy or build a table....pay for the software to run it, pay for the extra space to process the stickers.... and prob will end up selling that printer and laminater at a loss when its all said and done. seriously, what makes you think it was a good idea to do this.

one of our customers bought themselves a copier many years ago....they do a few hundred copies per month. so they paid 12k for a copier so they can get .01 cent copies on a few hundred copies per month. how much could they have saved if they had just paid retail for the last 10 years....copies wouldnt have cost them more than .10 cents per piece retail plus tax. so over the course of 10 yrs, say they did 10k copies, literally would have only cost 1000.00 plus tax. instead they paid an extra 11k bringing their 1k volume total to more like 100 dollars per sheet..

You are leaving out 2 very important things. Labor costs to run around town dropping off and picking up copies and the convenience factor.
I bought a yard spotter truck to move semi trailers around, paid about $10k for it. I have friends that would come by and move them with their trucks or can pay a towing company $100 to do it. It is counterproductive to do that though and having my own truck was worth every penny I paid. We dont have a shop bay held up waiting on someone to move the trailer or employees standing around waiting for one to be moved inside.

 

[jfiscus]

You can use regular white vinyl as a "laminate" in this case for 2nd surface graphics printed on clear. If you print your crop marks you'll probably want to apply small bits of masking tape over them before you laminate the reverse print with the white vinyl. Then once the white vinyl is laminated to it, you can carefully cut off the taped areas of white vinyl and run it through your plotter (do you have one of those?) to cut the decals.

 

[peerlessdani]

it sounds like you bought a printer so you could make your own stickers for windows. i have to say those will be the most expensive stickers you have ever bought. you could have bought your stickers retail and still bought a truck for the amount you would have saved. unless you are making millions of stickers, you completely wasted your money. now you have to buy more equipment, deal with a huge costly learning curve, buy or build a table....pay for the software to run it, pay for the extra space to process the stickers.... and prob will end up selling that printer and laminater at a loss when its all said and done. seriously, what makes you think it was a good idea to do this.

one of our customers bought themselves a copier many years ago....they do a few hundred copies per month. so they paid 12k for a copier so they can get .01 cent copies on a few hundred copies per month. how much could they have saved if they had just paid retail for the last 10 years....copies wouldnt have cost them more than .10 cents per piece retail plus tax. so over the course of 10 yrs, say they did 10k copies, literally would have only cost 1000.00 plus tax. instead they paid an extra 11k bringing their 1k volume total to more like 100 dollars per sheet..

Well it wasn't ME that bought it nor was it my idea. I am just here to do what they want me to do . The company I work for has PLENTY of space to add any tables (which they build themselves) or anything else that is needed and we will be making large quantities of these stickers, not just 1 or 2 here and there.

 

[peerlessdani]

You are leaving out 2 very important things. Labor costs to run around town dropping off and picking up copies and the convenience factor.
I bought a yard spotter truck to move semi trailers around, paid about $10k for it. I have friends that would come by and move them with their trucks or can pay a towing company $100 to do it. It is counterproductive to do that though and having my own truck was worth every penny I paid. We dont have a shop bay held up waiting on someone to move the trailer or employees standing around waiting for one to be moved inside.

We don't have to run around town to deliver anything, the stickers are applied by us here at the warehouse and the manufacturing plant.

 

[peerlessdani]

You can use regular white vinyl as a "laminate" in this case for 2nd surface graphics printed on clear. If you print your crop marks you'll probably want to apply small bits of masking tape over them before you laminate the reverse print with the white vinyl. Then once the white vinyl is laminated to it, you can carefully cut off the taped areas of white vinyl and run it through your plotter (do you have one of those?) to cut the decals.

Our Roland also cuts, if that's what you mean.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

We don't have to run around town to deliver anything, the stickers are applied by us here at the warehouse and the manufacturing plant.

You dont pay attention very well. I was responding to night eagle about someone buying a copy machine and how it was a dumb idea compared to going to a copy shop.
Didnt you already ask this same question about second surface print vs lam a few days ago too?

 

[peerlessdani]

You dont pay attention very well. I was responding to night eagle about someone buying a copy machine and how it was a dumb idea compared to going to a copy shop.
Didnt you already ask this same question about second surface print vs lam a few days ago too?

I saw that you had replied to someone else but I still figured it was aimed at me and I did post about this a week or two ago and got no responses and I didn't include as much detail as I did this time.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Its probably faster to reverse print on clear and laminate white vinyl onto it if youre doing a bunch. The last time we had a run to do, I printed in groups and used the takeup. Then used the laminator but instead of masking the crop marks, I made a little jig out of cardboard and would stop after each group and cut out the white where they would cover up the crop marks. Then could re-load the finished roll into the plotter and cut them out. It was faster than doing it individually or digging out tape under the white vinyl.
Even on single prints I notch the corners to clear the crop marks. Just offset the marks more to give a little room to screwup.

 

[peerlessdani]

Its probably faster to reverse print on clear and laminate white vinyl onto it if youre doing a bunch. The last time we had a run to do, I printed in groups and used the takeup. Then used the laminator but instead of masking the crop marks, I made a little jig out of cardboard and would stop after each group and cut out the white where they would cover up the crop marks. Then could re-load the finished roll into the plotter and cut them out. It was faster than doing it individually or digging out tape under the white vinyl.
Even on single prints I notch the corners to clear the crop marks. Just offset the marks more to give a little room to screwup.

This sounds like a good idea to me as well.