Beginner Guide To Laminators

Laminators come in many different styles, brands, and price ranges. Just like a car, with laminating machines you have your economy size and luxury models. The best way to select the right laminators for you is to access your laminating needs and buy accordingly. The two common types of laminators are pouch laminator and roll laminator.

To begin the process of selecting a laminator, ask yourself a few key questions to determine your real needs. You will want to keep in mind not only what you will laminate now, but what you may need to laminate in the future. Identifying the correct laminator of any application is not an easy task. You need to consider several factors.

1. What kind of volume will you be working with?
   

   Do you plan to use your laminator on a daily basis? If there will be a lot of material passing through this machine, you want to make sure that you get a heavy duty laminator. Make sure it is made with steel gears, 4 rollers and metal casing instead of plastic for durability. If your volume is very high, almost constantly running, you might want to get an industrial laminator that can process 20 feet in a minute. You might also be working out of your home office, in which case all you will need is a small pouch laminator.

2. What size and thickness will you be working with?

   Laminators come in various sizes. Some pouch laminators have limitations of 4”, whereas other pouch laminators can laminate up to 18” wide. Some roll laminators have limitations of 12” and others can laminate up to 63”. If you just want to laminate ID cards, then a 4″ width pouch laminator should suffice. If you want to laminate large items such as posters, you are probably best off with a wide format roll laminator.

   Lamination film comes in different sizes and thickness. Thinner lamination film is pliable and easy to move, whereas thicker lamination film is tough and hard to bend. Some laminators cannot use lamination over a certain thickness.

3. Do you want your document to last a long time?
   

   Different types of lamination film will allow your documents to last longer. If the duration of your laminated document is not an issue, a less expensive lamination film can be used. If a document needs to last a long time you may want to use a thicker lamination film, acid-free film and/or UV film.

4. What needs to be laminated (paper, fabric, wood)?

   Some laminators work better with different products. Some pouch laminators work better with photographs. Some laminators cannot laminate anything thicker than standard paper, whereas other laminators can laminate products up to 1/2” thick. Posters, in most cases, will have to be laminated by a roll laminator.

   On the other hand, if you are using your laminator for mounting, you will probably be laminating thicker items such as wood and foam board in which case you must make sure that your laminator can handle it. You might want to look into purchasing a dry mount laminator or a pouch laminator with spring loaded rollers to accommodate thicker laminations.

5. Is space/mobility an issue?
   

   Some laminators are bigger and take up more space. Pouch laminators, in most cases, are easy to pick up and move around. Roll laminators usually take up more space and are harder to move, but lamination carts are available which make moving a roll laminator around from room to room much easier.

6. Will the material be laminated on one side, both sides or mounted to a substrate?

   You will have to make sure that if you are mounting, your laminator will be able to accept thicker items. Good things to look for are spring-loaded rollers because they automatically adjust to the object’s thickness and still apply pressure to the object for great laminations.

   If it is being used in an office for example, it might be helpful to get a laminator with a standby switch so that you can leave it running all day and it will be ready to use at anytime. You might also want to make sure that your laminator has a ready light so that you can see when it is ready to begin laminating.

7. Where will the laminator be used?

   If it is being used in an office for example, it might be helpful to get a laminator with a standby switch so that you can leave it running all day and it will be ready to use at anytime. You might also want to make sure that your laminator has a ready light so that you can see when it is ready to begin laminating.