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Laminators for under $5000 - recommendations, and why!

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flyboy1963

New Member
Thought I'd start another laminator thread.........the last one was evidently not quite for the small shop that only does a few jobs a day!
I see 55" cold laminators from Daige, Royal Soveriegn, & off-shore knock-offs etc.....but some look like they would be almost un-usable...you have to screw the rollers up and down on each side, and try to get that distance or pressure even.
Are they kidding?
So what I'm after is a power feed laminator, that could be used for masking vinyl, as well as applying prints to the usual 1/2" MDO that is the bread and butter of most small sign shops. A nip opening of more like 1" would be better. Single lever operation to drop the rollers. I have shop air, so that would be ok too.

Can one person operate most jobs?
Are big rollers better? Why?
Who uses pre-heat? Is it an essential option, or just if /when your shop is cold?
How often do you need the power take-up?

thanks for all your input!
If you do mostly 4'x8' size prints, or small banners,
 
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BigfishDM

BigfishDM

Merchant Member
Call the manufacturer and get a list of some of their clients and call them directly and ask them why they like or dislike there machine.
 
S

speedmedia

New Member
I have a Artic Titan that I love but I want to say new it was closer to $10,000. My biz partner has a Ledco that is really a nice laminator that is in that range. Heard alot of people say good things about Royal Sovereign as well.

Thanks,
Kurt
 
Letterbox Mike

Letterbox Mike

New Member
We've been running a Royal Sovereign for 5 years and have no real complaints, once you get it dialed in it runs well. Our volume has increased to the point that it's a little bit of a bottleneck and it's 1/2" nip opening is becoming a problem occasionally, so we're replacing it with a higher-end Seal unit. But we're still going to keep the RS as a backup/overflow machine when we need it.

All in all I highly recommend it, it's been a great unit. But if you plan on mounting a lot of 1/2" substrate through it it will be an issue for sure, full open is only a tiny fraction more open than 1/2", half-inch substrates do not freely move through the machine when it's open, and you can't slide in a position your prints on 1/2" material either. To efficiently and quickly mount 1/2" material you really need a laminator with at least a 5/8"-3/4" opening at full open. But aside from that, It's great for the money!
 
J

jmcnicoll

New Member
I'm a firm believer that you should spend more on your laminator than your solvent or aqueous printer!!!!! We started with $14,000 gbc that got us by for little over a year and then upgraded to an really nice AGL. With the switch to AGL we dropped our redos because of something happening during lamination to almost ZERO! Although sometimes we have two people running a small job to save web time everything can be done by one person.

Bigger rollers are better! Most lesser brands (even the GBC we had) are built with crowned rollers to help with pressure in the middle. The AGLs have straight rollers and ours uses air pressure instead of a handle or knob to twist.

Spend more than you want!!! You'll be happy you did in the long run.

Message or call me if you want.

Jim
 
Letterbox Mike

Letterbox Mike

New Member
Edserv said:
We purchased a GBC on Craigs List for a very low $ amount and it works like a king. We also have a way of running our laminate that is probably counter to what most of the readers on this forum would ever believe. If you're interested, send me an email to chris@letsgobanners.com. I'll try to explain it. Before we bought our GBC, we out-sourced our overlams to other sigh shops and repeatedly were warned that there was a very high spoilage rate. We experimented with different methods and now have about a 90% perfect lamination technique for our signs/car wraps, etc.

Good luck!

Chris / Lets Go Banners / Tsunami Wraps
Click to expand...

I'm interested to hear your technique, please post it here!
 
iSign

iSign

New Member
forgot to mention... I have an Arctic titan too. It has it's moments & I've posted about some frustrations with it, but generally speaking I've been able to train my staff fairly easily to where I almost never run it anymore, only have imperfect results on well below 5% of jobs, and paid around $5K in a package deal I put together & negotiated hard on, with Advantage Sign Supply...
 
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