The Art of Laminating

The Shop

Mastering the Final Touch in Graphics Production

By Adam Sumner

Whether you have just made the venture into the Wraps industry or you are a seasoned pro. Each shop around the globe has one common goal: print the best, most vibrant graphics you can and the fastest speed possible.

I talked last month about printers and how to choose the right one because that’s what people love. For years we have seen so many advancements in printer technology. And next year something amazing will come out, I’m sure. Some new ink set, some advancement that will allow you to move from printer to lamination faster. Because the goal of the printer manufacturer is to get you to buy ink. The money for them is in the consumables. And in 3 years time that topof-the-line printer you just purchased will be replaced with the new model that will leave you feeling left out like the kid on the kickball field.

However in the back corner of every shop or trade show floor is the black sheep of the family, the laminator. It quietly sits there not making a sound and gets passed up and not even thought about by the majority of shops. Why, because from the first laminator to the current modern laminators very little has changed. Moving from hand lamination to adding motors, and now the addition of heat-assisted rollers the advancements in lamination are not as visible as they are in the printer space.

In my opinion, lamination is hands down the most important step of the process. And it happens to be the one machine that if maintained correctly does not need to be replaced. In fact, the only time I ever needed to buy a new laminator was because of my own mistakes. The first laminator that I replaced was a royal sovereign. It was not broken and was working just fine when we got rid of it, I just made the mistake and punched a 54-inch laminator to match the size of my printer at the time. When my printer went down and needed to be replaced we upgraded the size to a 64-inch machine and needed a laminator to match our production capabilities. We replaced the Royal with a GBC Spire 3 laminator in 2010 and it’s still running every day. We then added an additional CWT galaxy laminator just to help increase workflow. Both machines are currently used each day.

This article is about the art of laminating not what machine is right for you or what machine is the best on the market. This article is about understating how lamination can affect the final installed product. And in order to do that we need to understand exactly what is happening to the film when we laminate. We can break it up into four categories: pressure, tension, heat, and speed.

Pressure

The pressure of the Nip rollers can affect the material in a few ways. First to little pressure will not allow the adhesive to bond correctly it can lead to “silvering” or microscopic bubbles trapped in between the lamination and print film leaving you with a hazy finished product, as well as increasing the likelihood of the lamination lifting off the material once it’s applied, especially in reassessed areas. So the answer is to put on the maximum pressure you can.

WRONG!!! Adding too much pressure can actually cause the material to slip on the liner and if you are using a material with air release or slidablilty feature. Too much pressure can result in crushing those features and making the installation difficult. Depending on your laminator you’re aiming for a medium to high pressure. We take ours till it’s at 70-80% of the max pressure depending on the laminate.

Tention

This one is by far the most important. Understanding what the effects of adding tension to the laminate output shaft can have on your material is key. How many times have you run your prints through the laminator just to come back in the morning and you can’t seem to get them to unroll from itself? How many times have you come back to that wall graphic you installed just to see the edges of the material curling off the wall? Many times we automatically assume it’s an adhesive issue or a material issue. As that may be the case the argument could also be that it in fact is a production issue with how the laminate was applied.

When I first started producing my own graphics the laminator was always that one piece of equipment that could take a perfectly smooth relaxing day at work and turn it into WW4. I found that if I just cranked down on the brake tension and made that laminate super tight I had fewer problems with the material walking on me and not getting waves in the laminate. It wasn’t until some time later that I really decided to dissect what was happening to my film through each phase of production.

I ran a test and printed some 1-inch stripes on the top of my laminate on both a calendar and cast laminate. (Yes, I know you’re not supposed to do that but hey, SCIENCE). I then loaded it up on the laminator and fed some film through. I found that when I added tension to my laminate roll on cast film I could see about a 5-7% stretch on my laminate for cast and about a 3-5% stretch on my calendered laminate.

So what is the big deal with a little stretch? Well if I am going to be paying top dollar for my vehicle wrap print and laminate to be able to stretch my film by 30% I want to make sure that in the process of production, I am not adding pre-stretch to my film. As well as understanding if that one edge that is lining on the flat edge of the door is because I didn’t post-heat that edge down. Even though I did not stretch the film in that area when I was installing. The laminate could have a bit of stretch and it’s a good idea to postheat my edge to make sure that it stays down.

Heat

You know when manufacturers put out product bulletins only nerds read them well I’m that nerd. 3M specifically recommends bottom heat not top heat for lamination the reason being “TO NOT STRETCH THE LAMINATE DURING THE LAMINATION PROCESS”. Avery mentions both top and bottom heat however does not specify which one they recommend.

Our one laminator is top and bottom heat assist and the other is Top only. For the most part, we stay away from heat and if we do use heat it is for one of two reasons either the graphic getting installed immediately after lamination. Or we are working with a matte finish laminate that we have had issues in the past with silvering, especially those super matte laminates.

Speed

This one is the difficult one. Each film and laminate combo likes different things. As well as speed also depends on the diameter of the nip rollers the larger the roller the faster you will be able to run and keep things straight. If you have smaller nip rollers like 2-3 inch rollers you are going to have to run a bit slower to keep things rolling straight.

The slower you run the machine the more time that the Nip rollers will have contact with the material and laminate giving you a better bond and visual appearance in the film. The faster you run the machine you can increase the likelihood of the silvering effect, especially on matte finishes. We typically start slow and adjust the speed up as the roll is moving through the machine. We look for silvering and any waves in the laminate coming over the rollers before it is applied and adjust the speed as high as we can go as long as everything is looking good, if we notice anything we back the speed down a bit and leave it as the max for that film and laminate combination. Hopefully, this article helps you better understand what effects lamination can have on your material. Remember each laminator is different, that is why this is not a guide on how to laminate correctly, more of just a guideline of what to think about when you’re finishing that amazing print. Spend the time to set your machine up and double-check that everything is square before you start. Dial in your pressure for the laminate you’re using. And once it’s running try to release all pressure from the laminate spindle. Make sure you’re limiting how much stretch you’re putting on your film.

Adam Sumner

Adam@wrapixacademy.com

Owner, Wrapix Academy

Owner, Wrapix Imaging

3M Authorized Trainer