Sheets/Roll Curling As Soon As You Laminate

[NITOS]

Has anyone experienced problems with the vinyl curling upwards as soon as you laminate the vinyl?

This happens with both of my GFP Laminators.

We tried:
Loosening the tension to as low as possible and even tightened the pinch rollers 4 inches after they touch.

Loosened the pinch roller 1 inch up after they touch.

Still no luck. Stickers will end up curling like tacos after a week or two with the customer.

Do you think this is a machine problem or a laminate problem? We're using Oragaurd 210 but with some suggestions we're planning on testing Oragaurd 215/Substance PL-3150.

 

[ewded]

What's your time between print->lam?

 

[White Haus]

I've found Oraguard 210 to be very unstable, so it doesn't surprise me.

Now that I think of it, we've had lots of extra decals stored flat in drawers curl up when they were laminated with 210 gloss. (It will also fail over time after being applied to vehicles etc. That's why we stopped using it)

We've switched all our gloss laminate to Arlon 3220 recently - it's probably double the price of 210 but at least you can trust it.

You could also try Avery DOL 2060 - we haven't played with it much but use 2080 (matte) on a daily basis and it holds up really well.

 

[KEYSER SOZE]

Has anyone experienced problems with the vinyl curling upwards as soon as you laminate the vinyl?

This happens with both of my GFP Laminators.

We tried:
Loosening the tension to as low as possible and even tightened the pinch rollers 4 inches after they touch.

Loosened the pinch roller 1 inch up after they touch.

Still no luck. Stickers will end up curling like tacos after a week or two with the customer.

Do you think this is a machine problem or a laminate problem? We're using Oragaurd 210 but with some suggestions we're planning on testing Oragaurd 215/Substance PL-3150.

You're using the wrong Oracal laminate.
210 is a cheaper Monomeric short term laminate, it's priced accordingly.
I'm also surprised anyone would put 210 on a vehicle in the first place.

215 is a full Polymeric and what you should be using.
We use 4-5 rolls a week of 215 gloss on Oracal 3551 print media, it's really stable.
On larger flat-panel vehicle graphics we often use Oracal's 290 which is the cheaper of their Cast laminates.

 

[Costaricanprinter]

I am having this problem with my new r5070I can't figure out the correct curing temperature
Am using orafol 3641 and 210 laminate

Have 0 problems printing the same job on the same material on my mutho

 

[MelloImagingTechnologies]

If you don’t want curling you have to go to the slightly more expensive Polymeric calendered vinyl and lam.
You get what you pay for!

 

[NITOS]

If you don’t want curling you have to go to the slightly more expensive Polymeric calendered vinyl and lam.
You get what you pay for!

Believe it or not, when we first got into ecosolvent signage/sticker printing we were told Oragaurd 210 was the go to quality material to for all printing needs so we stuck with it and dealt with the aforementioned problems thinking it was our machines for a good 2 years.. WOW.

We have Oragaurd 215 and PL-3150 rolls coming in today, both Polymeric Lam you all recommended. Crossing our fingers for good results. Will provide updates soon!

 

[MelloImagingTechnologies]

The dealer you bought from should have been able to tell you what the differences are.
You should probably switch to an honest dealer.

 

[guillermo]

Tension is the problem, if you are curling upwards, the top roller is too tight .... if doing cold lamination, I use my hand for tension, it comes out very flat (you may not need too much tension as this will stretch the film and curl after)

 

[NITOS]

We have switched to Oragaurd 215, PL-3150, We are seeing good results!

Still some horizontal curling opposite of the lamination feed itself, but I'm thinking that is a vinyl shrink issue.

Cold lamination, 1 inch hand tighten after pinch rollers touch. Max vinyl tension, zero lamination tension.

 

[Saturn]

What are you printing on?

Shouldn't probably need "max" anything, so you might try lowering the vinyl tension too. I use GF-203 with PL-3150 (glossy, matte, glitter) on my little Royal Sovereign and things are flat flat.

On a scale of 1-10 for laminate tension the gloss goes on with a 1, and the matte a 2-3. The tension for the printed roll could be anything from 0-3 but doesn't usually seem all that critical.

 

[NITOS]

We're printing on a Monomeric Holographic Vinyl that we imported.

I see people get great results laminating with a flat bed or manually laminating, but we print thousands of stickers so our only efficient option would be roll to roll laminating, and occasional sheet feed when we reprint misprinted pieces.

We have also questioned if it was a problem with our laminators as well. We have two GFP Laminators.

 

[Saturn]

Roll to roll for sure, but specialty and no-name stuff may always be a fight. As folks already mentioned, less tension is usually best as a starting point, but there may not be anything you can do about the stuff curling in the axis you can't control. The Holo I used briefly would do the same thing.

Shouldn't be an issue with the laminators themselves, settings maybe, but it sounds like you're on the right track now.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Pretty sure 210 is not monomeric. 215 is a good laminate but it also curls on decals that are cut up. Used it for a long time but then the price became stupid vs the alternatives. We have signs at our shop that are 6-7 years old with 215 and look fine. We use substance now and have seen some yellowing on the 3150 laminate around the 2 year mark but still use it.

 

[TheAngryCanadian]

I would look at your profiles, make sure you’re not over saturating your prints. Make sure you’re allowing those prints to outgas for at least overnight. The combo of over saturating a print and not allowing it to cure can cause this very issue.