What is 'laminating'? Dictionary definitions suggest that lamination is a process of placing something between layers of plastic and gluing them with heat and/or pressure, usually with an adhesive. Sounds straightforward enough but there are principally three types of lamination in the office environment, these being:
Pouch Lamination
Heated Roll Lamination
Cold Roll Lamination
Their primary function is to embellish or protect printed works. Which type is best depends on what you need to laminate, for what purpose and your budget.
Pouch Laminators
Pouch laminators are relatively inexpensive and are probably the most popular type for general office and home use and are ideal for business report covers, photographs, i.d. cards etc.
Pouch laminators use a lamination pocket or pouch which has a central seam which when folded over creates a pocket to insert the material to be laminated prior to running the pouch through the laminating machine. As the pouch goes through the laminator, the glue on the inside surfaces of the pouch is heated, causing the lamination film to adhere to the object being laminated.
The pouch passes between rollers which squeezes out any air bubbles and creates a strong bond and tight seal. Some excess glue may be squeezed out the sides of the pouch and some laminating machines use a pouch carrier to catch this excess glue to ensure it doesn't gum up the laminator and to provide rigidity to the pouch to prevent any jams in the laminating machine.
Laminating Pouches can come in a number of different sizes, these being
Paper A1
Paper A2
Paper A3
Paper A4
Paper A5
Paper A6
Paper A7
Credit Card (54x86mm)
IBM (59x83mm)
ID (60x90mm)
Key Card (64x99mm)
Luggage (64x108mm)
Military (65x95mm)
Badge (67x95mm)
Pouch thickness is measured in microns (1 micron being 1/1000th of an inch). The thicker the pouch, the more rigid the finished lamination. There are usually 5 thicknesses to choose from:
150
200
250
350
500
Be aware that the thinner pouches can't necessarily tolerate the higher range of temperatures that the thicker ones can.
Laminating Pouches come in a gloss finish or matt finish. A gloss finish is great for clarity and impact and are ideal for photos, presentation packs, reports and a matt finish is great for material which is to go outside or in brightly lit areas where light reflection may be an issue. In addition, look to see whether the laminating pouch has rounded or pointed corners, the thinking being that the rounded corners are 'safer' to handle.
Heated Roll Laminators
The process used is similar to pouch laminators but Heated Roll Laminators are for more industrial or high volume office work and for large format prints. They are quicker to laminate in volume as they use one or two large rolls of lamination film. The film used in the roll laminator has a heat-activated glue on one side of the lamination that sticks to the print when it is run through the laminator. One roll is situated on top of the machine, while a second roll of film is simultaneously fed from the underside. The top roll laminates the top of the print, while the bottom roll laminates the bottom and once laminated, a blade is used to cut the laminated object from the machine.
Cold Roll Laminators
Cold Roll Laminators do not use heat to laminate. Instead they use a plastic film coated with an adhesive which is activated by pressure as it passes through rollers. This process is particularly useful when you need to laminate things which might be damaged by heat such as wax based ink or fabrics, vinyl or low temperature melt plastics. In addition, many large format inkjet printers use ink which is susceptible to damage by heat caused by Heated Roll Lamination.
Finally
For the majority of offices, pouch lamination will be more than adequate with the Roll laminators only being necessary for specialist, industrial or high volume use. But like most things in life, you get what you pay for. Make sure you understand what you need, some laminators have only one temperature setting, others can vary the temperature according to the pouch thickness, other pouch laminators have 2 rollers, some others 6, the more rollers, the better the result.
