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Need Help In a pickle on laminators...

daenterpri

New Member
Hey Everyone!

We are hurting in the laminator department. What should I do? 2 years ago I purchased a GBC Spire III. We had some issues with it initially, but it's been a really good machine overall. Seems heavy duty. Metal components. Big rollers, etc...

We print roll to roll all day long. We print mostly stickers. So we require a heavy duty laminator that has a take-up / rewind system and heat assist.

Our GBC Spire III has been giving us grief in the last few months. The heat element went out on it and after it got replaced, it seems that we cannot achieve good alignment left to right. We've had a tech out but it still is off. Jobs are pivoting while being laminated, and that's not good.

We talked to one of our sales guys that sells Seal laminators (Acco owns both Seal and GBC). Seal is made in the States and I've always heard good things about them. We bought a Seal 62 Base with heat and take up reel option. We didn't have it in our budget, but we need a laminator that will work well ASAP.

We got this Seal 62 Base and it's horrible. The core holders are all plastic, the take-up system is not built-in and the worst part about the take-up system is that the core holder is just straight PVC pipe. No rubber holders on it like the rest of the core holders! It's like they went out of their way to make the take-up reel be awful. They tell you that you have to tape the roll cores to the take-up pipe. But you can't just tack it down, you have to use a LOT of tape to make it work. I cannot fathom why they made it this way when the rest of the core holder on the machine have rubber on them.

That, and there's no rear deck on this laminator... it's weak-sauce compared to our GBC Spire III. And the heat assist went out on it the 2nd day we used it.

The guys at ACCO (GBC and Seal) and the sales people we bought it from really do want to make us happy. We are sending it back and then it sounds like they might send another GBC Spire for us. We generally like that idea, but our Spire only lasted 2 years. And we've found it hard to get support from GBC / Seal.

What do I do? Should I get another Spire III? Or should we get a different laminator? We need something robust that can handle multiple jobs a day for many many years.

All I really know about is GBC, Spire and Royal Sovereign (had 2 of those light-duty units in the past). Any suggestions?
 

ProPDF

New Member
Check out royal sovereign or ledco if possible. The royal sovereign take-up is not too expensive to add maybe less than $750 depending on the model and they all have the rubber strips on them. I never understood why Seal did that either.
 

daenterpri

New Member
We actually still have an old Royal Sovereign 55" (1401?) with take-up reel and heat assist. But we consider it to be a lighter duty backup machine. It's actually saving our bacon this week. It just makes me nervous having it be our main production machine. I think

The GFP looks good too. I like the swing out bars.

My main concern is that we want good support. We'd like to be able to pick up the phone and talk to support when issues arise. Currently, if we have to call GBC or Seal (both owned by ACCO), you can't talk to anyone. They send out a tech that you pay for, that may or may not be familiar with laminators at all. The tech then spends the bulk of his time getting to talk to an actual tech at ACCO that we wish we could talk to.

I've been looking at the Royal Sovereign RSC-6500H, but it seems to be lacking a rear deck. One thing we do like about the Spire III is that it has a nice big rear deck that comes in handy.

So...
  • Quality built
  • Good support
  • Rubber core grips
  • Strong, built-in take up reel
  • Heat assist
  • Large rear deck
Is that too much to ask?
 

Bly

New Member
We have a Seal 62 Base.
I don't know why the take up is such a deal breaker.
Just wrap some masking tape around the pvc tube until it's thick enough then it's just a matter of pushing a media core on to jam it tight.
 

tomence

New Member
Check out AGL Laminators - Compadre or Encore models, these two are the real deal you buy'em once and they will last forever.
 

ams

New Member
I have a SEAL and it's been amazing. Why in the world do you want heat assist? It's pretty useless in the sign industry. Only needed for special things. Mine is a cold only and never had a single problem. SEALs are a bit tricky in the beginning to learn but after that it's a piece of cake.
 

jfiscus

Rap Master
I surely recommend you get a GFP laminator; GREAT laminator at a GREAT price. Heat assist with take up roll. We do roll-to-roll all lamination day long and everyone in the production department can run it. The swing-away loading features are real nice also.
 

daenterpri

New Member
I have a SEAL and it's been amazing. Why in the world do you want heat assist? It's pretty useless in the sign industry. Only needed for special things. Mine is a cold only and never had a single problem. SEALs are a bit tricky in the beginning to learn but after that it's a piece of cake.

Unlike most sign shops that are doing a lot of wraps and signs, 85% of our products are small stickers on calendared media and laminate. Sometimes our customers are getting these stickers the same day or next day, and the amount of silvering reduction that heat assist provides is crucial to our customer's first impressions.

Having had 3 other laminators now, this Seal 62 Base really does have a poor design for a $14k laminator. It might be a decent machine if it were laminating short run graphics that were going out on a table. But it's not a good roll to roll laminator.
 

daenterpri

New Member
Check out AGL Laminators - Compadre or Encore models, these two are the real deal you buy'em once and they will last forever.

I spoke with our regional sales / service guy. I'm impressed. An AGL Encore might be the ticket. Definitely more spendy... but at this rate we've been going through a laminator every 2 years. And I like being able to pick up the phone and get support right away. Trying to get support when you need it for the GBC and Seal is not fun. You can't talk to anyone.
 

tomence

New Member
I would love an AGL but $24,000 is alot for a laminator unless we start doing 600' rolls all day every day.

I think your price is way off than mine, when I was pricing out AGL the Compadre was $13K and the Encore starting price was $15K for the cold and $16K for the heat assist.
 

untitled

New Member
I've had a Drytac for the past year and a bit and it's working excellent. No take up or heat assist on my model though. JM55 Force is the one I have if I remember correctly.
Had a Royal Sovereign previously that after the first year started skewing and we could never get it back to pulling straight.
 
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