Anyone else ever notice this

[WB]

I've always notcied this but I never really payed much attention. Monday we printed a full wrap for a 2011 Nissan xterra. it used about 1/2 of a roll.

Now I started with a new roll of media and a new roll of laminate. Now today I go to print a partial wrap, I print roughly 1/4 of media and go look at the laminate and it look like I might barley have enough to laminate this. I know you use more laminate then media normally but not a 1/4 of a roll..

I always seem to be running out a laminate compared to media. ANyone else have this problem?

 

[threeputt]

Haven't experienced it.

 

[Webby]

yes

The only time I have noticed this is when we have a new person on the laminator. They use excessive amounts of lam when they are loading the laminator. Or the print starts to walk on them and they trim the print of and reload waisting even more.

 

[charissabuskirk]

I find they usually even out in the end. Between wasting vinyl doing test prints, and wasting lam webbing up the laminator....it's usually pretty even.

Same here. Typically order a roll of material and lam together.

 

[p3]

I noticed this. I even had a few prints that got messed up that I had to reprint, that had not yet been laminated and still have a ton of vinyl and ran out of laminate. So much so that it was like I had received half of a roll of laminate. Was just talking about this the other day.

 

[HulkSmash]

Usually its the opposite case for us, cause the media feeds out about 2-3 feet before we start printing. So usually lam. outlives vinyl.

 

[iSign]

wow... between changing out satin or gloss... cast or intermediate... 38" or 54"...

and printing on 3651, 3651RA or 180C...

I have never ever even considered having the slightest clue as to relative usage rates of 2 (or 10?) different media being interchanged at regular intervals..

I guess wrap specific shops would have less variation frequency... myself... I haven't got a clue where the greater waste costs lie... (hmmm... maybe I should)

 

[Jace161]

I used to use a lot of lam loading the machine, but I learned to organize my print jobs better so that if Im printing on a big roll(54"x150') I pretty much force myself to wait to print/lam unless Im using at least half a roll. Otherwise I end up using more lam little by little loading the machine every other day

 

[DucatiDave]

amen to the new person on the laminator as the likely source of the problem...

 

[k6media]

We are in exactly the same boat here..

wow... between changing out satin or gloss... cast or intermediate... 38" or 54"...

and printing on 3651, 3651RA or 180C...

I have never ever even considered having the slightest clue as to relative usage rates of 2 (or 10?) different media being interchanged at regular intervals..

I guess wrap specific shops would have less variation frequency... myself... I haven't got a clue where the greater waste costs lie... (hmmm... maybe I should)

 

[asd]

I've always notcied this but I never really payed much attention. Monday we printed a full wrap for a 2011 Nissan xterra. it used about 1/2 of a roll.

Now I started with a new roll of media and a new roll of laminate. Now today I go to print a partial wrap, I print roughly 1/4 of media and go look at the laminate and it look like I might barley have enough to laminate this. I know you use more laminate then media normally but not a 1/4 of a roll..

I always seem to be running out a laminate compared to media. ANyone else have this problem?

i did noticed and started to get suspicious about really having a full 150' roll, so this is what I did, my laminator only holds a roll 29" wide and the overlaminate comes in a 30" roll so i have to cutoff 1" from the roll to make it fit, I measured that 1" I cutoff and the roll was actually short 36'
I called my supplier to let them know about this problem, 5' or 10' max is acceptable but 36' thats alot

 

[Kentucky Wraps]

Well kinda depends on if you are printing a lot of separate panels with leader peices in between or butting up panels together. If I do all at once..it's even. If I have 3 or 4 smaller projects that don't get laminated at once...there is a lot of lam wasted because after each panel I need on the table, I have to run about 2 feet of leader behind it to keep the lam ready to recieve another peice later.

 

[SightLine]

Thirty six feet short! What brand of lam if you dont mind? That is way out of line and borders on fraud. Oddly we just ran a bunch of full bus wraps on Flexcon BusArt. Each bus uses almost exactly a full 54" roll with about 4 feet left over. On one of the 8 rolls there had to be at least 30 feet left over! I was buggin a bit thinking that something did not print on the wrap and had my employees double check that wrap to make sure every panel was accounted for. Luck of the draw but I guess it's a double standard that I'm cool with 30+ extra feet but think 30+ feet short is borderline fraud...

i did noticed and started to get suspicious about really having a full 150' roll, so this is what I did, my laminator only holds a roll 29" wide and the overlaminate comes in a 30" roll so i have to cutoff 1" from the roll to make it fit, I measured that 1" I cutoff and the roll was actually short 36'
I called my supplier to let them know about this problem, 5' or 10' max is acceptable but 36' thats alot

 

[VizualVoice]

maybe it's a ploy to get you to buy more, kinda like the old hotdogs vs buns not being the same numbers in a package.

 

[andy]

I called my supplier to let them know about this problem, 5' or 10' max is acceptable but 36' thats alot

I guess you're a lot more understanding than I am

If I buy a 50m roll of vinyl I expect to find precisely 50m of usable product... if I only get 47m then I'm going to be asking some serious questions about the slap dash QC processes being used.

I find measuring by weight is usually the easiest method... take a standard cardboard tube out of the laminate and weigh it. Find 5m of spare laminate still on the liner and weigh that.... when a "full" roll is delivered weigh it and subtract the known cardboard core weight. You should be left with a weight of just the vinyl & paper backing.... if you've ordered a 50m roll divide this weight by ten... the number should match your 5m control.. if it doesn't your brand new "full" roll is short. Sub dividing the control weigh by five will give you the weight of 1m of material... this will help you track down just how short your roll is.

I don't know how much these materials cost nor how much volume you use but if the answer to both is "lots" it might be worth investing in a set of digital scales.. over the course of a year they should pay for themselves many times over.

If your suppliers know that you routinely weight or measure all incoming goods as part of your internal QC process it's amazing how rapidly things improve... numbers don't lie.

 

[robwaterman]

i did noticed and started to get suspicious about really having a full 150' roll, so this is what I did, my laminator only holds a roll 29" wide and the overlaminate comes in a 30" roll so i have to cutoff 1" from the roll to make it fit, I measured that 1" I cutoff and the roll was actually short 36'
I called my supplier to let them know about this problem, 5' or 10' max is acceptable but 36' thats alot

digging up an old thread.

how did you cut off the 1" off the end of the roll?