thanks guys...
interesting, you both have reverse wound lam.
I can see how the lam rolling down off the top of the roll creates the situation where that chrome bar redirects it, while smoothing it out, which is what it's there for... but on my forward wound roll, that seems to be why my tech thinks it should go up over the idler arm, since it doesn't get redirected & smoothed out if I go under that bar, since it feeds off the bottom of the roll.
Well, at least I got my main concern right now laminated... not I just gotta mount 500 sq. ft. of prints. Did the first 4x10 today with the big squeegee... went down great!