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Suggestions Adding slitters to roll laminator?

White Haus

White Haus

Not a Newbie
Has anyone added slitters to their roll laminators? I know some come with them, including our ancient GBC Titan, but for the life of me I can't figure out how we could actually make use of them the way they're mounted.

I figured I could just rig up some kind of OLFA blade on each side that's retractable but curious if anyone else has come up with something.

The main goal would be to have something adjustable & retractable that can be used to cut down the edge of laminate/vinyl that inevitably accumulates on long runs.
 
C

CanuckSigns

Active Member
I've been trying to wrap my head around the same thing for our royal sovereign laminator, I'm sure I could 3D print something that would hold an olfa blade, but I don't have the 3D modeling skills.
 
White Haus

White Haus

Not a Newbie
I'll try to take a picture of the factory ones on our GBC, I think I left one intact.

I pulled one of them off to reverse engineer it and now I can't put humpty dumpty back together.... :roflmao:
 
Boudica

Boudica

I'm here for Educational Purposes
by hand with an OLFA. I don't like the built in slitters, or the grooves designed for it.
 
Boudica

Boudica

I'm here for Educational Purposes
White Haus said:
The main goal would be to have something adjustable & retractable that can be used to cut down the edge of laminate/vinyl that inevitably accumulates on long runs.
Click to expand...
I re-read your post... missed the last part. I've often wished for something similar - to trim the excess lam off the sides when it get's off. The only problem is, when it's off - it's the vinyl your laminating that is a skew - not the laminate. So the side trimmers would have to be somewhat intuitive and move with the vinyl. Not sure that would work.
 
C

CanuckSigns

Active Member
Boudica said:
I re-read your post... missed the last part. I've often wished for something similar - to trim the excess lam off the sides when it get's off. The only problem is, when it's off - it's the vinyl your laminating that is a skew - not the laminate. So the side trimmers would have to be somewhat intuitive and move with the vinyl. Not sure that would work.
Click to expand...
Quite often my vinyl will drift a bit during the first few feet, then settle and be consistently. 0.5" off of the laminate for the rest of the roll, a slitter would help cut the overhanging laminate off the roll, I've had the overhang cause issues in the past where it can actually tear the vinyl as it gets pulled into the plotter.
 
Boudica

Boudica

I'm here for Educational Purposes
CanuckSigns said:
Quite often my vinyl will drift a bit during the first few feet, then settle and be consistently. 0.5" off of the laminate for the rest of the roll, a slitter would help cut the overhanging laminate off the roll, I've had the overhang cause issues in the past where it can actually tear the vinyl as it gets pulled into the plotter.
Click to expand...
I trim it off before I put it in the plotter. Doesn't that excess laminate stick and cause issues zipping forward and back?
 
Dasdesignguy

Dasdesignguy

Production Manager/Field Service Tech
I once had used a couple of those cheap plastic letters openers with the razor built into it. I was able to drill a small hole to mount them onto some adjustable guides I had taken off an old folder. They weren't perfect but once you manually got it started you were golden.
 
Boudica

Boudica

I'm here for Educational Purposes
Dasdesignguy said:
I once had used a couple of those cheap plastic letters openers with the razor built into it. I was able to drill a small hole to mount them onto some adjustable guides I had taken off an old folder. They weren't perfect but once you manually got it started you were golden.
Click to expand...
Gotta picture?
 
I

ikarasu

Active Member
We have one on our new Royal sovereign at work... Not only is it 4x faster (less than 5 mins to laminate a full roll) it has 4 cutters on it.... And I have to say they're awesome.

They use a proprietary blade that costs like $20.... And the mechanism to engage / disengage also sucks, you have to twist it, then use all yournkightnto twist it even more to ensure it's going deep enough.


I don't think an Olfa would work, it's too flimsy and would cause a lot of travel - but a heavy duty utility blade might.

And designing something in a 3d printer would be easier for this since it has little notches.

What rs laminator do you have? I have one at home and I eventually I'm going to try to 3d print something for it, it really comes in handy and makes life so much easier. All the people who have it and say it's a gimick are liars! :roflmao:

1710389040191.png
 
A

amw

Longtime Members
Its early so maybe this only sounds good when I am still waking up (no coffee yet lol). Couldn't you use something like an expandable shower rod, or curtain rod to hold whatever slitter you come up with?
That way it could be placed wherever needed and the 3d printed slitters could be slid across the rod for perfect placement.
Ok, off to find some coffee!

Marsha
 
jharler

jharler

New Member
I order my laminate 1" shorter than my vinyl. That gives me some leeway on drift. Makes laminating much less stressful.
 
cmoist

cmoist

New Member
I've looked into adding this to our GFP as well. Attached are a bunch of options I found. In the end they are all contingent on having a place to mount the bar on the laminator that is positioned correctly.
8efa19b68c.jpg Blade-1050.jpg GFP563TH.PNG ronan-slitter-blade.jpg s-l1600.jpg
 
White Haus

White Haus

Not a Newbie
So this is the GBC set up....... the way they have them mounted, I have no idea how you could use them without having the extra bar installed which wouldn't work with the way we web up.

The set up/design is nice but it sits 2" too high to be useful. They also seem to use a unique blade that can't just be replaced as it's built into the plastic part. Might try to find a way to mount a longer blade or retrofit these fittings.
 

Attachments

  • GBC Slitter.jpg
    GBC Slitter.jpg
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White Haus

White Haus

Not a Newbie
cmoist said:
That's actually not bad. With the assembly being so big, it might enable more positioning flexibility - as opposed to having the slitter blade mounted right on a bar that must be mounted in the perfect position.
Click to expand...
Yeah that's a good point. Only problem with our current set up is that we don't have a take up on this laminator, so it would have to sit much lower and cut between the 2 sets of rollers. Still might be doable though!
 
Notarealsignguy

Notarealsignguy

Arial - it's almost helvetica
White Haus said:
So this is the GBC set up....... the way they have them mounted, I have no idea how you could use them without having the extra bar installed which wouldn't work with the way we web up.

The set up/design is nice but it sits 2" too high to be useful. They also seem to use a unique blade that can't just be replaced as it's built into the plastic part. Might try to find a way to mount a longer blade or retrofit these fittings.
Click to expand...
If you can figure out the bar, you could probably have someone copy the steel ends but make them taller so you have more travel?
 
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