One sided laminators - experience?

lfelton

Well-known member
We are looking to bring laminating in-house for digital print (but not for litho runs).

Does anyone have any experience that they can share?

I am looking at the:-

Foliant Gemini compressor 400A
D&K Pegasus
GBC 620os

...having seen and discounted a few others.

They each have their pros and cons, but can anyone who has actually bought any of the above give me some feedback?
 
Re: One sided laminators - experience?

This is not exactly the most active of forums and I guess that not many people have brought their laminating in-house!

We've gone for a Foliant Gemini II 400A full automatic line. Very impressive in dems and we're looking forward to installation in our new digital print hall within the next couple of weeks.

If anyone wants to know how we get on with it, let me know - I'm happy to share experience.

Laurence
 
Re: One sided laminators - experience?

Laurence,

How is the install going? What kind of film are you using and off of what kind of printer?

My experience is that laminating a digital print is tough - lamination will have a tendency to not stick to digital print. Let me know how things are.

Craig
 
Re: One sided laminators - experience?

We're doing OK so far. We had a couple of mechanical glitches initially, but nothing you wouldn't expect with a brand new machine. The machine we've chosen has a pneumatic system to give much higher pressure at the nip and during testing we've had good adhesion on digital with standard films. Being paranoid though, we're currently sticking to the agressive adhesion film for digital jobs and switch to the standard for litho runs. Excellent results on jobs so far with no silvering. We run book covers etc through our digicrease before binding and the adhesion has been perfect on the hinge so far, even with heavy toner coverage. Very good feeback from customers so far, but I suppose it's early days yet. BTW we're very glad that we went for the fully automatic line from the outset.

Sorry, you asked about the films: we're using the manufacturer's proprietary film at the moment which is expensive and I think is just a resold version of one of the main film manufacturer's products. We plan to trial D&K Superstick and the GBC high adhesion digital film over the next couple of weeks as they are cheaper & I'll post the results if you're interested. To answer your other question, we use Xerox kit at the moment (but may be jumping ship to KM shortly).

Edited by: Laurence on Jul 16, 2008 12:39 PM
 
We're been leaning towards an offline varnish, but are also considering the Foliant 520. I"m very curious about your experience with the Foliant 400 and folding. How thick is the paper you fold/crease? And how thick is the laminate?

I'd also love to hear your experience with the less expensive film when you get a chance.
 
We're laminating from about 120gsm to 350gsm. I know that the guys had some problems with the lighter weight stock initially, but I think that was sorted (it's just more difficult for the operator to set up). From memory, the laminate ranges from 19micron (standard gloss) through to 47micron (digital matt), but I may be off a few microns either way.

We've been flat out recently, so haven't had a chance to try different manufacturer's film. I'll post some results when we do.
 
We have also a Foliant Gemini compressor 400A. which foil are you using - we have xerox prints and currently testing gbc ultrabond.
 
one more thing - we print on 300gsm, laminate with appx. 40 micron both sides and fold it without problems.
 
A couple of people asked... so a quick update. We've switched to the D&K films and they are just as good & a bit cheaper. We're now testing nylon hygroscopic films, with a view to switching to these for book / brochure one side laminates on digi prints. This is to solve the issue of very dry stock (i.e. we will typically take printed covers off off one of our digital presses and laminate them the same day) absorbing moisture on the unlaminated side and giving a slight "wave" in the cover. I don't know whether UV coatings are hygroscopic, but if so, this may be an issue UV coater user will need to address in a POD environment.

To answer the thickness query: we mainly crease inline on our perfect binder at 250/300gsm or offline with our Autocreaser for wire stitched documents at 160-300gsm. No problems with creasing/folding these. We don't do a lot of folded laminated leaflets, so don't know how well these fold. I'm guessing it would be a PITA.
 
You mentioned you were using Xerox and thinking about KM. Make sure you trial fresh sheets from the KM. Films produced to deal with older systems from both Xerox & KM can struggle on the new toners that are polymel (ie: wax) as oposed to the old finishing oils. We sold a laminator along side each KM placed in NZ for a while. Since they changed to polymel on the latest devices we struck problems.
 
We're probably into the low hundreds of thousands of sheets laminated so far. No problems bar initial operator inexperience - we didn't really realise that it's a pretty skilled job running a laminating line (funny the sales people don't mention that). Some stocks just don't laminate very well, and we've learnt the hard way to use the nylon film for book covers, but apart from that it's going well.
 
While I've seen some references to laminating toner based digital printing (tonography), can anyone share a success story for laminating Indigo prints? A matte film would be nice.
A matte GBC 1.7mil thermal started lifting at the edges WITHOUT and PRIOR TO handling.
Our management likes to suggest a cold laminate for digital, any experience with particular films?
John Lind
Cranberry Township, PA
724-776-4718
 
There is a couple of issues with Indigo , but 90% of work on this surface is OK. We do have a top of the line product called X-BOND Supastik which has been used as a last resort on Xerox oils and waxed inks. It is expensive though and only really used on small runs that can take the cost. Going back to thermal films though, a good digital/laser film should work for the majority of Indigo output. Need to see a sample of the failure . If you want to pursue that give Jimm Grimm a call on 765 935 6131 or cell 765 969 6406. He's a plastics and lamination scientist with decades of knowledge on bonding things. He also can supply these films.
 
Thanks Bondmaster. Thanks for the contact and product reference.
John Lind
Cranberry Township, PA
724-776-4718
 
Bondmaster,

Is there a material you've found that works well with the newer Konica Minolta C6501 units?

Thanks

We laminate the output from 6501s using D&K superstick all the time with excellent results. We also use the nylon film for book covers. In fact we could easily cost justify a decent UV coater on what we spend on nylon film alone, however the results that we've seen so far have been disappointing (UV coaters, not nylon film).

Remember that using superstick alone wont give the results you are after, you need some serious nip pressure as well.
 
Thanks for the feedback. We've been looking at the Foliant 400T or S - do you think this will provide a decent solution for lower volumes?
 
Thanks for the feedback. We've been looking at the Foliant 400T or S - do you think this will provide a decent solution for lower volumes?

We have the Foliant Gemini 400A which works well. I find their web site confusing as they have two products called the 400 (the "basic" machine) and the Gemini 400. The major difference is that the Gemini has the hydropneumatic pressure system and I think you really need this for digital print. So, make sure it's that version and it should work well for you. Make sure you get some good training - it's not an easy machine to run "right" for all jobs.
 
Great Choice!

Great Choice!

I've only had experience with the Foliant and the D&K machines, but you made a good choice.

You can try Extreme Bond as well as the Superstick. A little different adhesive that may work with different inks. Both are good films and the prices are comparable. Good luck!
 

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