Need Help Newbie - Cast Overlaminate loading

[Goatshaver]

Total newbie to everything cast. I wanted to laminate a sample print, but I cannot get the film loaded for the life of me. It's got a poly liner which and when I try to thread like I do with calendared material it just bunches up gets wrinkled and all jacked up.
There must be a trick that I don't know about.

 

[Goatshaver]

Got a picture of your threading setup?
If it's something like 3m 8518, I never had problems threading, but splitting the liner was the worst. I tried both a bodyguard knife and a topsheet knife with only half luck, and even then I'd accidentally slit some laminate and it stretches so much it would be a 50/50 shot whether or not the backing would roll up smooth. After throwing everything not nailed down at the wall in frustration, I put a piece of duct tape across the area to be split, made sure it was stuck well, then took a regular knife and slit the backing. It's a lot harder to go too deep in duct tape, and it holds the laminate together taught if you accidentally slit the laminate.

Yes it is 3M 8518. It's just a sample roll that came with the machine. The pic isn't that laminate, I took the 3M off cause I was getting heated. So it comes off the roll on the bottom, then under the idler bar from there I usually separate the liner from the laminate and tape the liner to the waste core. Use a piece of old backing paper and stick it to the laminate, load my feed board and have a rigid piece I push into the nip to get it started.

This stuff is so easy to wrinkle and bunch up, and it really sticks to the poly liner like heck!

There must be something I'm missing for cast because I've gotten calendared down and rarely have problems loading that stuff.

 

[Boudica]

Cast is thinner and floppier. I was going to ask if your using heat - but now that I see the picture it looks like you don't have heat assist. Hmm, I can't picture what's happening... can you do a video? Or will that make you too angry reliving your nightmare?

 

[Goatshaver]

Cast is thinner and floppier. I was going to ask if your using heat - but now that I see the picture it looks like you don't have heat assist. Hmm, I can't picture what's happening... can you do a video? Or will that make you too angry reliving your nightmare?

Hahaha yeah I think I've got PTSD from this film. I'll try tomorrow to take a video.

Basically because it's much thinner it gets all stuck to itself when I'm trying to separate the liner from the film itself and then it makes loading it straight a bit hard.

 

[Goatshaver]

So if I'm following, you take the leading edge and seperate it there, and try to get the backing up to the takeup while keeping the laminate on the roller, but it's shifting and wrinkling and sticking to itself?

Exactly! And I probably have to have a clean waste core cause it seemed like this poly liner just slid, even though I taped it to the waste already on the core.

 

[Boudica]

These handy little tools are AMAZING... will save your sanity:

 

[Goatshaver]

Thanks guys! Really appreciate the helpful tips. I knew it would have to be a slightly different way to load it. I'll see if I can give these a try.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

If you can't get the liner off do it just like tint. Put a piece of tape on the corner of the liner, one on the corner of the lam and peel the tape apart.

 

[Goatshaver]

I've tried tucking the laminate in the nip to secure it and the tape thing and making a light slit across but it's not deep enough and the backer pulls up hard and just ends up tearing and making a mess. I must be really dumb cause this is very hard to deal with and I cannot get it to work for the life of me. Wasted a bunch of this material already and don't have much left. At this rate I'd end up wasting a whole roll of this 8518 just trying to laminate one print. *sigh* I just don't have the luxury of time right now and was supposed to deliver this days ago but I've been fighting this laminate every step of the way.

I tried peeling up a small portion and sticking it to some waste vinyl so I had a start to the backing, when I got the backing taped up and advanced the roll the take up roll wouldn't move and the backing was just being pulled towards the nip of the rollers with the laminate.

Think my blood pressure is high enough for the day I need to walk away from this. If it's this hard for me to load laminate I'll never do anything cast. There has to be something crucial I'm missing on this cause I've never encountered anything so difficult to load.

 

[Goatshaver]

Frankly it could be 'expired.' This stuff never seems to come off easily, but is definitely more stuck the longer it sits around, and being a sample roll, it could be ages old.
Try doing a few layers of tape, then don't really try to avoid cutting the laminate, just don't cut all the way through the tape. The tape should keep the laminate from peeling back with the backing, but if it won't, I'd toss the roll. You could even try telling whomever you got the roll from how badly stuck to the backing it was, and they may send another sample.

I've got no idea. It came with my Epson S40600 when I bought it. I did notice my take up roll wasn't even moving, so that may be a problem. The adhesive is so aggressive my old laminator can't take up the waste.

 

[Boudica]

how big is your print? If it's not too long, you could cut off enough lam to cover the print, then hinge one end onto the slack of the print and run it through the laminator like your mounting to a substrate.
I do this frequently, when I have such a small job that it's not worth the waste of webbing up the laminator.

 

[Goatshaver]

how big is your print? If it's not too long, you could cut off enough lam to cover the print, then hinge one end onto the slack of the print and run it through the laminator like your mounting to a substrate.
I do this frequently, when I have such a small job that it's not worth the waste of webbing up the laminator.

It's 30" x 19". I'm not even sure how to do that. A lot of these techniques are totally new to me.
If I'm having this much difficulty just trying to web cast laminate I'll never get my feet into cast material and vehicle graphics.

 

[Boudica]

JBurton had it right on how to web it. It's a bit wasteful, but makes life easier.


However, In a pinch to get this little project out of your life:

1. Lay your print on your work table. Roll out the laminate to cover the print - and at least 6" on each end.
2. Measure the lam, move your print out of the way and cut the laminate.
3. Now, bring the print back to the table, and lay the laminate over the print - liner side down.
4. at one end - at least 6" inches from the start of the print, Use 2" blue tape, and tape the laminate to the vinyl all the way across. Squeegee that down good. This is your hinge.
5. Now take this over to your laminator, and put the hinged edge into the laminator... forward until you reach the edge of the Lam (middle of your hinge).
6. Flip the laminate over the laminator, so the liner side is now facing up, and the laminate is draping over the laminator.
7. Take a small knife, and find the edge of the liner - slowly lift it up the way across. Enough to have about 2" or enough to pull on evenly.
8. Use the foot pedal to forward the print and lam through the rollers, while you lift the liner.
9. Trim it and do whatever finishing you have to do.
10 kick it out the door and get paid

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Eh, don't sweat it. You literally have one of the worst materials to learn with. Call up Arlon, ask for a sample of their SLX so you can see if it's going to be able to replace your IJ180 offerings. They'll hook you up with a distributor who will be happy to ship it for free likely. SLX will come with 3270 lam.
If you haven't played with any cast wrap material, you'll be amazed. I'd recommend getting a sample from someone and just watching a couple of youtube videos, then dive right in on your own vehicle. It won't work, but you'll quickly realize whether you are enjoying it or not. Wrapping is more an art than a job, just art with good pay.

Boudica's strategy here ought to work, though I'd prefer to stick both half way through the laminator, flip the lam over the roller, then split it with a bodyguard knife, but until you get one this isn't a viable option. (And even then the bodyguard knife is more for print material with a repositionable adhesive, it only kinda works on laminates, and would definitely leave some sort of marking where the knife ran.)

Bottom line, that laminate sucks when laminating. It's a fine product once it's on the material, if that makes ya feel any better...

Don't mean to hijack the thread but what's so special about the SLX? I don't do full wraps but I bought a roll of the SLX+ and didn't find it to be anything special. It did cut/weed better when we used it for that.

For the laminating issue, I have always done it like this:

This is how I learned and set it up every time. The only difference is that I hardly ever do individual sheets so I'm using a take-up for the backer and the laminated print. It doesnt waste any laminate at all. Leave yourself about 6-8" of blank space off the edge of your print for any little wrinkle or fingerprint you get at the beginning. If the 8518 is flopping around on you, try taping a corner of it to the roller as you work your way down splitting off the backing. That laminate is a bit stickier than most but it shouldn't be difficult.

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

I hate 8518 for the reasons you've mentioned above. The adhesive gets waaaay too aggressive over time, and our laminator won't take up the liner either. Has never happened to any other media we've used so we just stopped using 8518.

 

[Vinyl slayer]

We use 8519 every day. 8518 only for perf . Never an issue with the Kayla Mistral laminator (heat assist off) and a body guard knife to cut the liner to separate.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

I got a china special and don't have problems with 8518. Sometimes you have to do a little dance with the laminator to adjust tension on the fly but it's no big deal. As long as you set it up pretty good, if you get a wave or anything, you can grab one end of the roll (which side and which roll depends on which way the wave is going) and get it going back right. There's usually just enough endplay on a laminator to fix problems as you roll through, you just have to pay attention and be observant of how the material behaves. Personally, I like 8518 more than any other cast laminate. That nice silence as it runs through the machine says quality to me.

 

[Goatshaver]

JBurton had it right on how to web it. It's a bit wasteful, but makes life easier.


However, In a pinch to get this little project out of your life:

1. Lay your print on your work table. Roll out the laminate to cover the print - and at least 6" on each end.
2. Measure the lam, move your print out of the way and cut the laminate.
3. Now, bring the print back to the table, and lay the laminate over the print - liner side down.
4. at one end - at least 6" inches from the start of the print, Use 2" blue tape, and tape the laminate to the vinyl all the way across. Squeegee that down good. This is your hinge.
5. Now take this over to your laminator, and put the hinged edge into the laminator... forward until you reach the edge of the Lam (middle of your hinge).
6. Flip the laminate over the laminator, so the liner side is now facing up, and the laminate is draping over the laminator.
7. Take a small knife, and find the edge of the liner - slowly lift it up the way across. Enough to have about 2" or enough to pull on evenly.
8. Use the foot pedal to forward the print and lam through the rollers, while you lift the liner.
9. Trim it and do whatever finishing you have to do.
10 kick it out the door and get paid

I ended up trying this way and all went ok until I stopped my laminator cause I wasn't prepared for how much that adhesive pulled and ended up getting bubbles through it but definitely learned a bit and never using cast anything before and trying this hinging method, I was ok with screwing up this. I shall try again hopefully with better results.

 

[Vinyl slayer]

I've only had silvering with matt calendred lam, and the heat assist helps with that. Now I'm thinking you have a tension issues with your laminator, but your two problems are opposite.

 

[Goatshaver]

I've only had silvering with matt calendred lam, and the heat assist helps with that. Now I'm thinking you have a tension issues with your laminator, but your two problems are opposite.

It's not silvering. It just from my inexperience in doing this. This lam wasn't threaded on the machine I had cut it to size. It stopped because I didn't have the waste pulling off correctly and it tripped the finger guard and at one point, i was trying to get the guard down and it sucked some of the waste in. Totally a learning experience and I'll try again with much better results next time I'm sure.