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Lamination....HELP!!!!

Circleville Signs

Circleville Signs

New Member
Holy crap.

So, now that I've blown through about $400 worth of Cv3, I'm resorting to asking all of you for help with this STUPID LAMINATION!!!!

Here's the rundown of what is involved.

Royal Sovereign Cold laminator (55").

3M 8518 Lam (54")

3M IJ380-Cv3 (54")

Laminating prints that are 78" long and 54" wide

I have laminated 96-120" prints with NO ISSUES AT ALL using calendered lam (Oracal 210). I have laminated 48-60" long prints with this exact same material with no issues in the past.

I CANNOT get this thing to track straight, or even LOAD straight. I normally roll my prints, print side out. I leave 12" or so hanging off the roll, and load that into the laminator. Then I line it up, hit run, and make sure to brush off any lint/detritus before the print area hits the rollers.

I can't get this to work AT ALL. I've ruined so much vinyl it is making me sick to think about it. I've rearranged my set-up so that my laminator is now loading from a table so that I dont' have to roll the print. No matter what, every time I get to the last 18-24" of a print, my material starts to crease and the print is ruined.

These are panels for a wrap, and I'm getting way past the point of frustration.

Anyone have ANY IDEAS that might help here?


Gary
 
Z

ZsVinylInc

New Member
Gary,

It sounds like you have an RSC 1400c laminator. If so I have the same machine. What I do is roll the prints up print side in. I have placed an old 54" empty box on the floor in front of my laminator. I set the roll inside it. I then make sure my laminator speed is set to one. I then pull up the front edge of my vinyl and push it into the rollers making sure I have one hand on the right and left sides pushing down and out a little. I then use the foot pedal to start it. I normally just start it really quick then stop it again and then lean down to eye level where the vinyl is entering the rollers to make sure it looks like it has grabbed it straight and even. I then turn up the speed and repeat the process. I hope this helps.
 
luggnut

luggnut

New Member
so your prints are 54" and lam 54" ... no room for error? or is there a little white on each side of you prints? it could be the main roller is not exactly level and is skewing and wrinkling the prints.. or the lam is not loaded right (which if you've done this a while shouldn't be your problem) or if you are using kraft paper the paper is buckling underneath.

i always run a little lam (12" or so) thru first and hold the lam on the back roller with one hand trying to increase resistance ... this tightens the tension of the lam feeding in and some times i hold the roll of lam during laminating the prints with one hand if it looks like it is slacking. i use kraft paper or the paper from previous rolls.. i know a lot of people don't, but most of the time it keeps any lam from sticking to itself or the rollers on a long run of material.
 
P

PressPrintGraphics

New Member
I know this is the obvious, but make sure the prints are square when you load them into the laminator. Check them with a T-Square. Also, not sure how you load your laminator but I use to have ALL kinds of problems with creasing, etc. When I load my laminator now (Enduralam), I push the vinyl through the roller and tack it to the bar on the back side until it is nice and straight, tighten the backing paper on the front, then crank the roller down..

Good luck with it either way, I feel your pain - dealt with it for a long time almost until the point where I said screw it..
 
Circleville Signs

Circleville Signs

New Member
PressPrintGraphics said:
I know this is the obvious, but make sure the prints are square when you load them into the laminator. Check them with a T-Square. Also, not sure how you load your laminator but I use to have ALL kinds of problems with creasing, etc. When I load my laminator now (Enduralam), I push the vinyl through the roller and tack it to the bar on the back side until it is nice and straight, tighten the backing paper on the front, then crank the roller down..

Good luck with it either way, I feel your pain - dealt with it for a long time almost until the point where I said screw it..
Click to expand...


That's not a terrible idea....Thanks!

Gary
 
PC Signs

PC Signs

New Member
We used to have a GBC Artic Titan, and we would have the exact same issue. The problem was the rollers were bowing when they are clamped down all the way, the thinner the vinyl and laminate the worse the problem. The solution was to set the pressure to a much lower pressure (maybe 3mm, I can't remember), you will get silvering that will go away after about 24 hours, however it will laminate a 150' roll without a problem. I hope this helps.
 
S

speedmedia

New Member
I find something on my laminator that is square I can measure off of and run a strip of vinyl down the loading dock on each side so when I load it is know if is square. I have laminated 25' at a time with no issues with a Daige Quickmount 4.

It sounds certainly like a squaring issue. Always make sure especially if it is long and there is little margin for error.

Thanks,
Kurt
 
Rooster

Rooster

New Member
If it seems to work fine except for the last 1.5 - 2' of material I would examine how the tension is changing over the last bit of the job.

I have the GBC arctic titan as well and find that once it's locked and loaded I have to mess up the feed side for it go screwy on me.

I'll also tend to use sheets of laminate rather than the roll feed in many cases due to the amount of wastage it takes to load the laminator correctly for smaller jobs. If I let the laminate and the print sit and flatten out overnight it makes it much easier to work with.
 
Nuagedesigns

Nuagedesigns

New Member
I had a similar problem. Check the clearance side to side on each roller. They should have less than 1/16" side to side movement. Royal soverign knows of the problem they have c-type shims that are easily installed by any of us. They also have solid ring type shimms that you have to completely disassmble the rollers which I had my technician do from grimco about 30 days after I bought this machine. He installed roughly 3/16" of shims on the lower roller and about a 1/4" on the top. Call your tech support and request these shims if this is the problem. From what I understand they somehow had a few of these machines get out the door with out proper alignment of the rollers.

Good Luck

Bruce
 
Letterbox Mike

Letterbox Mike

New Member
Are you still having problems Circleville? PM me if so, I'll see if I can help. We've laminated countless full rolls through our RSC without more than .25" or so of side-to-side walk. Sounds like the machine is either not calibrated correctly or you are loading the material wrong or a combination of both.
 
A

acothran

New Member
We have had the same problem (at times) with our RSC-1650H. I've narrowed it down to feeding/loading error. Just for trial, we rolled our media (3M IJ35C - print side out) and loaded it onto the backing paper roll (we don't have the front feed assembly add-on). The angle is a bit tight but we loosened the tension a little on that roller and found that it works really well. Others may have a reason not to do this but we've now tried it a couple of times with good results. This method gave us enough resistance to make it easier to feed with even pressure. We ran through about 60 feet of window perf (36") and by the end it may have walked 1/8". Good luck.

Allen
 
Circleville Signs

Circleville Signs

New Member
Hey everyone.

Thanks for all of the replies. This particular job has me under the gun in a big way.

Suffice to say, my problem is not solved. Temporary fix is a friend who owns another shop with a 62" Seal Pro. He's lamming for me. (He's a good friend...what can I say).

Insignia - I will shoot you a PM in a day or two - AFTER I get this wrap installed. Any help is appreciated.

I've never had this issue with calendered lam - just this 8518. Ugh.


Gary
 
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