laminator for soft touch nylon and the like?

[wonderings]

We find we are doing more and more cards and other things with the soft touch nylon. We outsource this finishing to another printer at the moment but are looking to bring it in house. I have zero experience with this. Any recommendations on hardware? Pretty much everything we have down right now with the soft touch nylon is coming from digital print products, so maximum sheet size is 13x19.

I see various options for cold and heated, electric and hand crank. I am assuming I would want electric to take away any hand work for something larger. Any issues with a large format unit if the majority being fed through is digital sheet size? Flexibility would be nice for large format stuff if there was no compromising for a majority of small work.

What are the dependable name brands I should be looking at?


Thanks

 

[DYP]

Have you tried soft touch digital print paper yet. https://mgxdigital.com/masterpiece-graphix-launches-luxe-soft-touch-for-digital-presses/

There are other brands out there as well. I have some of MGX paper I have yet to test.

I do thermal soft touch film. http://nobelus.com/luxefilms-karess-ultragrip-printable-overlaminate-film/ You will need the ultra-grip variety with any digitally printed sheet and a laminator with at least 250 degrees fahrenheit.

Haven't really checked the soft-touch paper prices but I bet it will be way more costly then doing the over-lam film.

 

[wonderings]

Have you tried soft touch digital print paper yet. https://mgxdigital.com/masterpiece-graphix-launches-luxe-soft-touch-for-digital-presses/

There are other brands out there as well. I have some of MGX paper I have yet to test.

I do thermal soft touch film. http://nobelus.com/luxefilms-karess-ultragrip-printable-overlaminate-film/ You will need the ultra-grip variety with any digitally printed sheet and a laminator with at least 250 degrees fahrenheit.

Haven't really checked the soft-touch paper prices but I bet it will be way more costly then doing the over-lam film.

Have not tried that paper, though I am pretty sure it will cost a fortune compared to laminating ourselves. Also would like to keep with the current stocks I know work and run well.

What laminator do you use?

 

[DYP]

Have not tried that paper, though I am pretty sure it will cost a fortune compared to laminating ourselves. Also would like to keep with the current stocks I know work and run well.

What laminator do you use?

Can't help you much with the laminator as we use our large format laminator. Might be best to ask for recommendations where you will buy your film. They may have refurbished ones. Also check out UV curable laminators as I understand there are now soft touch options for liquid coating.

 

[wonderings]

Anyone know the pros and cons of both a heated and cold laminator?

 

[DYP]

If your doing any post lamination finishing I don't think you will want to use PSA (if you can find any soft-touch PSA) and a cold laminator as you will gum up knives etc. with the adhesive. Unless of course you enjoy cleaning them.

 

[pippip]

I got in rolls of this for use on digital, went with ultra grip. Used on a normal GMP Execllam 355 roll laminator. Didn't have the best success but maybe someone might have advice.

We had to run it at 120 degrees (we generally run our lam at 110 for ref). First off it seemed to suffer extreme shrinkage? The roll being 315mm in width would shrink to 250-260mm width. If the temp even went a single degree below 120 it showed in the dark solid areas as tiny bubble like dots and if i upped the temp it just suffered more shrinkage.

Asked the supplier and they were no help. Still have the rolls so might give it another shot, only used on two previous jobs so maybe I was doing something stupid at the time.

 

[GOPISHANKAR]

soft touch is thermal velvet film i think , nature of the board also matters one side perfect another side tiny bubbles appear , and the result varies from xerox , canon , konika digital press, i think running at a lower temp and slower speed may solve ur problem , running at higher temp may have a effect on the soft touch ,

 

[connerj91]

For digital prints you really should probably use D&K superstick. Nylon is only intended for one sided lamination (it will tend to wrinkle on 2 sided laminates). Nylon is what they call a "Curl Free film" it's mostly used for book covers and similar projects, you'll want to get OPP STD for double sided prints. Your laminator should be able to get up to 145 Celsius so that you can really heat up the toner when it laminates. You can use a hand fed laminator, and hand slit the prints after they laminate, this takes some time so only go this route if you have low volumes, you can get a decent machine for around $2-$3K, or cheaper used. If you're doing a lot of laminating (more than 100-200 per day) you should invest in a laminator with some automation (either feeding, slitting, or both), but these can be pricey +$15K-$45K for medium duty. Also depends on the thickness you want to run. We have Fujipla ALM-3222 and it won't do over 5 mil, it also has issues running 1.5 mil film, 3 & 5 mil is the best, but you can still run STD thickness on it, sometimes it runs 100 sheets with no issues, others it jams every couple sheets.

 

[GOPISHANKAR]

water based lamination also gives good result on digital printouts except for dark tints especially black if it is in all colors