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Wet lamination

NgnEngraving

New Member
Hi All,

This is probably a silly question but I am curious.

Is it possible to apply water onto a digital print for laminating? or would this ruin it?

Thanks,
 

kanini

New Member
No idea but I guess your material warranties of any kind will go out the window the same time you take out that spray bottle... I guess you would have a hard time:
  1. Getting the laminate to stick to the vinyl
  2. Getting a good finish
  3. Keeping the vinyl flat on the table while squeegeing the crap out of it
  4. Getting out all of the water
  5. Avoiding any bubbles
  6. Avoiding silvering
  7. Being cost effective
  8. Looking serious
with this procedure... Just my thoughts, those who has tried it can probably chime in here...
 

JLD984

New Member
I've only done it once three years ago using Dry Erase laminate, it worked perfectly and is still going strong.
 

MikePro

New Member
it works, and it doesn't.
takes forever to dry, and ruins the lam if you don't get it down quick.

why ask, when you should be trying a sample?​
 

omgsideburns

New Member
I do it all the time. Work from the middle out and you've gotta squeegee the crap out of it to make sure all the moisture is out or you'll get some clouds. Let it set up for an hour before you cut.
 

pjfmeister

New Member
it works fine...we have used rapid tac in the past and spray both surfaces and use a hard squeege with a cover so you can push hard to get all the liquid out with one pass...
 

kanini

New Member
Oh, well you learn something from this forum every day, never thought it was even possible to apply wet. But how do you avoid soaking up the backing paper on the vinyl? Now you got me curious about this, need to try it on Monday instead of the laminator! :toasting:
 

TXFB.INS

New Member
Oh, well you learn something from this forum every day, never thought it was even possible to apply wet. But how do you avoid soaking up the backing paper on the vinyl? Now you got me curious about this, need to try it on Monday instead of the laminator! :toasting:

getting the backing wet is a PITA, its like wet TP just starts falling apart

Sorry.. still don't get it.
Why wet? So you can move it around while doing it? What's the advantage?

Why do you need to move around? its not like the lamination has lines to match up to the sign, as long as the vinyl is covered then you good to stick it
 

rfulford

New Member
Wet applying laminate was once suggested to me by my 3M rep for laminating 10' wide flex face vinyl. He mentioned a company that would wet apply 8518 with a 1/8" overlap on all of their panagraphics material. I really did not like the idea and went with a roll on liquid lam.
 

Malkin

New Member
I will sometimes wet apply laminate to a small print, when I dont want to bother changing out the film in my machine. The trick is to tape the print down to your table all the way around firmly. The prevents most of the fluid from getting around to the back side. You will still need to flip it and quickly wipe off any that did though.

While I don't do this often, its never caused a print to fail prematurely.
 

SignStudent

New Member
When I used to work for someone else he would sometimes wet apply graphics to a substrate without laminate, then wet apply the laminate onto that. Not the ideal way of doing things but it worked okay when we had problems with the laminator.
 

gabagoo

New Member
Tried it once before I had a decent laminator, and the cloudiness took 3 weeks to go away.... If you have a lot of dark colors in the print I wouldn't do it
 

SIGNTIME

New Member
learn to do it dry... or get the big squeegee or a laminator wet app is a pita once you have dry app down ... i dont wet app anything not even frosted glass
 
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