I am new to laminating, I SUUUUCK AT IT , I mean really suck at it. Need a video, tutorial or some veteran hacks to get this right....

[depps74]

I've been printing for about 5 years, most jobs do not require laminating (temp wall coverings in secure galleries) so I have little experience on my Royal Sovereign cold laminator 54" I have worked out how to feed it without bubbles and wrinkles, how to get a good lam, but the skewing is beyond me. I cut a smile in the lead sheet, feed it through and it looks good, but then it skews so there is almost always a 1- 1 &1/2' off, sometimes requiring a reprint, which drives me insane. My questions are:

-besides tamping my rolls down before loading is there a way to ensure the material on the roll is consistent?
-IS there some apparatus besides the guard rails to ensure your getting it on the roll as straight as can be attained?
-am I doing the load right? I do these steps: 1. Tamp roll, 2. load roll, 3. line up to guard rails, 4. cut smile, 5. feed smile onto take-up reel.... Am I missing a step here?
-Besides printing smaller than the lam sheet width, is there a way to keep the skew down to 1/4"? or is 1-1&1/2" as good as it gets and just tile my jobs 2-4"less wide so the lam covers all the print area?.
-How do you tighten the things(clamps?) on the rod so the printed material (and all the other rolls for that matter) stay put, but come off when its time to take them off the rod?

I am new to this and I am lost, frustrated and in need of help, so just asking for helpful advice please.

Thanks in advance friends,

Dave

 

[netsol]

don't get mad. you made me laugh, remembering about 5 years ago, our first experience laminating

frustrating as hell

we purchased used laminators and one of my guys was convinced SOMETHING was defective. it couldn't be us

it gets easier with practice. today you could blindfold me

most of our problem was with a 54 inch daige

 

[rjssigns]

I've been printing for about 5 years, most jobs do not require laminating (temp wall coverings in secure galleries) so I have little experience on my Royal Sovereign cold laminator 54" I have worked out how to feed it without bubbles and wrinkles, how to get a good lam, but the skewing is beyond me. I cut a smile in the lead sheet, feed it through and it looks good, but then it skews so there is almost always a 1- 1 &1/2' off, sometimes requiring a reprint, which drives me insane. My questions are:

-besides tamping my rolls down before loading is there a way to ensure the material on the roll is consistent?
-IS there some apparatus besides the guard rails to ensure your getting it on the roll as straight as can be attained?
-am I doing the load right? I do these steps: 1. Tamp roll, 2. load roll, 3. line up to guard rails, 4. cut smile, 5. feed smile onto take-up reel.... Am I missing a step here?
-Besides printing smaller than the lam sheet width, is there a way to keep the skew down to 1/4"? or is 1-1&1/2" as good as it gets and just tile my jobs 2-4"less wide so the lam covers all the print area?.
-How do you tighten the things(clamps?) on the rod so the printed material (and all the other rolls for that matter) stay put, but come off when its time to take them off the rod?

I am new to this and I am lost, frustrated and in need of help, so just asking for helpful advice please.

Thanks in advance friends,

Dave

I wrote a lengthy post regarding this very thing. Run a search on the site, sure don't want to type that up again. Lots of tips and tricks. I run a 65" RS.

One thing I will tell you is the leading edge has to be PERFECTLY perpendicular to the sides or you're going to be in trouble. Gotta start straight to feed straight.

You will learn how the laminator wants to be run. You will not bend it to your will.

Final thought: Five hours to print 5 seconds for the laminator to F**K it up.

 

[DL Signs]

Oh the headaches you'll have... But in no time you'll be an expert.
There's a learning curve just like any other piece of equipment. There are a lot of variables, tension, speed, pressure, but once you find what works for your workflow and machine you won't struggle as much. RJ hit the biggest nail on the head, with any laminator (or printer, cutter...), if you don't start out straight, there's no turning back, only 1-2 degrees off at the start adds up to a lot over distance. He's very knowledgeable, and if he wrote a post about it, it's worth finding.

 

[netsol]

Oh the headaches you'll have... But in no time you'll be an expert.
There's a learning curve just like any other piece of equipment. There are a lot of variables, tension, speed, pressure, but once you find what works for your workflow and machine you won't struggle as much. RJ hit the biggest nail on the head, with any laminator (or printer, cutter...), if you don't start out straight, there's no turning back, only 1-2 degrees off at the start adds up to a lot over distance. He's very knowledgeable, and if he wrote a post about it, it's worth finding.

there's a learning curve worse than most other equipment

 

[DL Signs]

there's a learning curve worse than most other equipment

True, takes time, lots of patients, and every laminator has quirks. I will say they're a lot better and easier today than when I got my first one 20+ years ago.

 

[Krissy Louderback]

We always say the laminator is the most temperamental piece of equipment we have. I don't run it much so I don't have many words of wisdom, but I can tell you that when we eliminated the use of craft paper, the problems got cut in half. I did laminate a big run yesterday and only tracked off about 1/4" over 40 feet, so I was pretty impressed with myself. I just made sure my leading edge was straight and squared off with the side edges. I slid the print in and made sure it was pushed up against the rollers with no buckling or wrinkles and then just hit run and kept my fingers crossed. Luckily it worked out for me. Good luck, I think you'll get better the more you do it.

 

[Applied Graphics WY]

I've been printing for about 5 years, most jobs do not require laminating (temp wall coverings in secure galleries) so I have little experience on my Royal Sovereign cold laminator 54" I have worked out how to feed it without bubbles and wrinkles, how to get a good lam, but the skewing is beyond me. I cut a smile in the lead sheet, feed it through and it looks good, but then it skews so there is almost always a 1- 1 &1/2' off, sometimes requiring a reprint, which drives me insane. My questions are:

-besides tamping my rolls down before loading is there a way to ensure the material on the roll is consistent?
-IS there some apparatus besides the guard rails to ensure your getting it on the roll as straight as can be attained?
-am I doing the load right? I do these steps: 1. Tamp roll, 2. load roll, 3. line up to guard rails, 4. cut smile, 5. feed smile onto take-up reel.... Am I missing a step here?
-Besides printing smaller than the lam sheet width, is there a way to keep the skew down to 1/4"? or is 1-1&1/2" as good as it gets and just tile my jobs 2-4"less wide so the lam covers all the print area?.
-How do you tighten the things(clamps?) on the rod so the printed material (and all the other rolls for that matter) stay put, but come off when its time to take them off the rod?

I am new to this and I am lost, frustrated and in need of help, so just asking for helpful advice please.

Thanks in advance friends,

Dave

I feel your pain. I'm still learning with my 54" Seal as well. one time It will run great. The next, forget it! I'm not sure if RS is the same but I have learned that the roll needs to be squarely in the center on the Seal as the shaft is tapered. I'm still trying to figure how to align the edges. I've tried drawing straight lines off the edge of laminate roll onto my feed bar with limited success. I think I definitely need to find the old tutorial post on here as well. Good Luck & keep on swimming!

 

[DL Signs]

We always say the laminator is the most temperamental piece of equipment we have. I don't run it much so I don't have many words of wisdom, but I can tell you that when we eliminated the use of craft paper, the problems got cut in half. I did laminate a big run yesterday and only tracked off about 1/4" over 40 feet, so I was pretty impressed with myself. I just made sure my leading edge was straight and squared off with the side edges. I slid the print in and made sure it was pushed up against the rollers with no buckling or wrinkles and then just hit run and kept my fingers crossed. Luckily it worked out for me. Good luck, I think you'll get better the more you do it.

I don't use carrier paper anymore either, it's just one more thing to keep aligned. Decades ago I had a Star-64 that you had to use it on because it had over a foot gap between the pinch rollers and a pair of nip rollers that was recessed with fans in it, so it was almost impossible to run without it. Awesome in that you could run 4 layers at once (including the carrier), so you could apply adhesive and lam to films at the same time, or encapsulate in one shot, but what a pain to keep everything aligned! Ever since that machine went bye-bye I haven't used any carrier paper. One thing I did learn from that one is making sure a laminator is level, both side to side, and front to back, that one was a 900+ pound beast, if it wasn't kept perfectly level things went way out of whack. Even the newer lighter machines will tweak a bit, so always make sure they're leveled, and check periodically. It helps.

 

[DL Signs]

I feel your pain. I'm still learning with my 54" Seal as well. one time It will run great. The next, forget it! I'm not sure if RS is the same but I have learned that the roll needs to be squarely in the center on the Seal as the shaft is tapered. I'm still trying to figure how to align the edges. I've tried drawing straight lines off the edge of laminate roll onto my feed bar with limited success. I think I definitely need to find the old tutorial post on here as well. Good Luck & keep on swimming!

Yes, rolls need to be centered.
How do you attach the backer to the take up reel? On our Seal I use cheap two sided tape, I run all the way down the liner take up tube, when I thread it I pull it tight, square, and attach it all the way across. If you have the lam roll centered, and it's squared/ attached to the liner take up like this, there's less chance of it being off. Then I peel some lam back, stick it to a 54" strip of dibond I cut for this, feed it between the rollers, square it up in the back, pull it tight and stick it it to the edge of the back ledge to hold it in place, then roll the liner up so it's not between the rolls, and lower the top roll to set it. If there's no waves or wrinkles, everything will be square to each other. I feed a piece of scrap through so I can cut the lam off that has exposed adhesive, or if I'm running long stuff I'll just tuck a tube under the lam sticking out the back, pull it when I start feeding so it doesn't go around the bottom roller, and use that for the take-up (that's where the foot pedal comes in handy, mine is always behind the machine for just this). Tensions vary by lam, but for most I keep enough tension on the lam roll to keep it just snug, and enough on the liner take up so it doesn't go into the rollers, maybe half the distance between the roller and the feed table. I rarely ever go past 40 on the roller pressure, unless I have to for certain lams. Unless I screw up feeding the media, it always runs true. For ease in centering the lam rolls just put marks on one end of the shaft for different widths so you don't have to measure. Sounds like a lot, but I can change lams in under 5 minutes doing this.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Do it like this but tape the liner to the roll. Get 3 pieces of tape ready, start laminating and tape it to the take up when it gets there. If you get it straight (pull tension on the print and lam) before you drop the roller it will be straight everytime no matter how long. It's not really that hard. I can do a full roll in 5 mins like this.

 

[caribmike]

I've been printing for about 5 years, most jobs do not require laminating (temp wall coverings in secure galleries) so I have little experience on my Royal Sovereign cold laminator 54" I have worked out how to feed it without bubbles and wrinkles, how to get a good lam, but the skewing is beyond me. I cut a smile in the lead sheet, feed it through and it looks good, but then it skews so there is almost always a 1- 1 &1/2' off, sometimes requiring a reprint, which drives me insane. My questions are:

-besides tamping my rolls down before loading is there a way to ensure the material on the roll is consistent?
-IS there some apparatus besides the guard rails to ensure your getting it on the roll as straight as can be attained?
-am I doing the load right? I do these steps: 1. Tamp roll, 2. load roll, 3. line up to guard rails, 4. cut smile, 5. feed smile onto take-up reel.... Am I missing a step here?
-Besides printing smaller than the lam sheet width, is there a way to keep the skew down to 1/4"? or is 1-1&1/2" as good as it gets and just tile my jobs 2-4"less wide so the lam covers all the print area?.
-How do you tighten the things(clamps?) on the rod so the printed material (and all the other rolls for that matter) stay put, but come off when its time to take them off the rod?

I am new to this and I am lost, frustrated and in need of help, so just asking for helpful advice please.

Thanks in advance friends,

Dave

I was like you when I first got our 54" cold laminator. But, practice makes perfect and I can do it with my eyes closed now.

 

[RexHavoc]

I am a little late to this conversation, but was having same issues with our RS. It turned out the rollers had to be calibrated, it was way off. After calibration, I now get very little skew. This video shows you how to calibrate.

I built my own gage with a fishing scale ($10 US) and a strip of retractable banner and a grommet instead of a metal strip. The RS will be a little more pull in the center than on the edges - get it as close to 10 lbs as you can on either end and you should be good to go.