HELP! My laminate is falling off!

The most common question we get asked by printers is "How do I stick to my digital print?"

With technology constantly changing and finishing struggling to keep up, we have established four key points in gaining the best adhesion possible to all digital print.

Machinery:

In order to gain sufficient heat and pressure to stick to your digital output, it is essential your celloglazing machine has a large diameter chromed heating roller (as seen on the MiniBond 380, MiniBond 520 and SAB-35). The larger the diameter of the chrome roller, the greater the contact area is and the faster you can laminate.  To gain speed from this process your machine must also have compressed air.

Temperature:

Finding the perfect temperature for laminating is trial and error, as all machines vary slightly in calibration and all films vary in processing temperatures.

Ensure your machine has sufficient warm up time which for most desktop laminators is around 20-30 minutes.  The temperature needs to be between 110 C and 120 C and always sacrifice the 3rd sheet to test adhesion by scoring and roughly cutting at the surface.

You may need to increase the temperature slightly while you are running your job, as constantly laminating will draw heat out of the machine.  Just remember to reduce the temperature again when you are finished!

If the machine is too hot, the film will crease and shrink towards the centre.  Turn it down a little, wait 10 minutes for it to respond and start again.

 

Speed:

As a rule, digital output needs to be laminated at slow speed.  The heavier the toner, the slower the processing speed. With the only exception being a machine with a large diameter, chromed heating roller and compressed air as mentioned above.

If you increase or alter your speed while laminating, always remember to re-check the adhesion level. It may seem time consuming to laminate digital print properly, however it saves time in the long run by not having to reprocess or reprint your job!

 

Film:

Probably the most important point: different digital print requires different film.

Establishing your output will determine the best film for the job, or when in doubt, do as we do and just run our Premium Digital BOPP as we know it sticks to everything!