Depending on your particular requirements and budget, you may want to use hot or cold lamination to laminate materials. Items that are subject to cold lamination are placed under pressure, while hot laminating may damage certain items due to applied heat. Each technique, however, uses a film to laminate the material, and the strength of the lamination and its durability depend on the thickness of the film used. Lamination also provides wipe-clean surfaces for your materials, making them easy to frequently disinfect.
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At VariQuest, we offer an energy-efficient, easy-to-use cold lamination machine, the Cold Laminator , to help you preserve and protect banners, posters, and bulletin board cutouts for repeated yearly use.
Hot Lamination
The process of hot lamination utilizes a heat-activated adhesive that is heated up as it travels through the laminator. A huge disadvantage of hot lamination is that some items cannot be subjected to the heat that occurs in this process &#; photographs are one example. Paper with ink from an inkjet printer is also not suitable for hot lamination since the ink on the paper may melt during the process. Hot lamination also takes more time to complete than cold lamination since the machine needs to heat up before the process begins.
Cold Lamination
With a cold lamination machine, a pressure-sensitive adhesive is used that does not require heating. This type of laminator utilizes rollers that compress sheets of lamination together. These laminators are easier and faster to use than hot lamination machines. They can be used safely for the lamination of virtually all flat items.
Cold laminating can be used for all types of documents, the process takes just a few minutes to complete and it does not take a highly trained professional to use our Cold Laminator . These are safe machines that require little maintenance, helping save on long-term cost.
The choice of whether to use hot or cold lamination may be based on several considerations, including who the users of the machine will be, the end of products required from the machine, and the available budget &#; but the VariQuest Cold Laminator is your best bet for ease-of use, safety, and versatility. Read more about the benefits of cold lamination here.
To learn about the various tools we offer &#; including our cold lamination machine, the Cold Laminator &#; for the creation of visual aids and teaching templates in the classroom, request a no-obligation demonstration with one of our expert education consultants, or give us a call at 800.328. or us at
If you want to learn more, please visit our website cold laminating film.
The biggest problem with inexpensive roller laminators is roll handling. Without supply and/or idler roller to straighten out the feed path, misalignments and wrinkles will plague you. They sure plague me, but I've rigged some low tech "bolt-ons" to my laminator that get the job done with a lot less grief.
Hot lamination has an additional advantage over cold -- you can align and sandwich everything before it goes into the laminator, because heat activated adhesives are low- or no-tack at room temperature. That doesn't mean it's a no-brain solution, but it does mean that you can spend some time getting things right before sending it through the machine. Cold lamination requires perfect alignment first time.
If you're not laminating anything bigger than 16x20, you might consider an inexpensive flatbed hot press, something by Seal perhaps (I've got a "frog" that's at least fifty years old and still going). With the right choice of materials you can mount and laminate at one go. There are bigger flatbed presses and even fancy "hot glass vacuum " presses, but they're very expensive and take up a lot of floor space. Still, compared to a wide format printer and as part of business expenses, they're not completly out of line.
Have you tried talking to DryTac directly? They've got technicians who are actually very helpful in making a decision on materials and options. Since they sell both hot and cold adhesive material, they're not predisposed to an answer either way. Give 'em a call and see what they say.
Now, there are other ways to get durable textured prints. There are canvas and linen textured papers, and with an overcoating such as Premier EcoShield (waterbased hvlp spray, gloss/satin/matte avail) you can drymount or cold laminate your output on hardboard and coat them and still enjoy a measure of abrasion and UV resistance.
I'm constantly experimenting with different combinations of media, mounting and protection. One thing is relatively constant, though: I'm done with glazing. Hate glass, hate acrylic, sick of putting prints under it. I'm experimenting now with tapestry printing for a very unique look; some of these prints (at eight feet tall) will be used in our local symphony hall.
Sorry the topic's wandered... There's lots of folks who will have more suggestions for you. Best of luck!
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