Jeff
Senior Member
This past summer and fall I was looking at gloss uv coaters as a way to get a perfectly consistent high-gloss finish on our digital toner-based laser prints. It will be a while though as the cost of new gloss uv setups is fairly high for us. Another issue is that applying a uv coating requires a coated stock whereas we run all uncoated in our canons at present.
Today I saw in the current American Printer magazine two machines featured -- sheetfed laminators with integrated guillotine cutters. I wonder if these (or similar) would be an interesting way to go.
The first was a D&K Group "Double Kote Digital" which looked pretty interesting, though the guillotine accuracy is quoted as "+/- 1/16" " which seems like it would be frustrating in many circumstances introducing so much play into anything that didn't have plenty of room to flow around the bend and plenty in from the edges. The second was a GBC "Delta" one-sided laminator with feeder - a similar setup and I recognize the GBC name. They both seem to require only around 30 sq. ft. of floor space.
I've always though of laminators as the old roll manual-cut machines that leave the clear edge around everything, so I didn't even consider this. Maybe though one of these sheetfed/auto-cut laminators is the ideal solution for perfect gloss coating digital output and would be easier than a UV gloss coater, and also allow really easy short runs, etc.
I wonder how durable such laminated output is?
Does it fold well if used to gloss coat covers or brochures?
Seems like maintenance costs would be very very low, but I imagine material costs would be quite high for the film lamination rolls on a per print basis... maybe not outrageous though.
Cutting accuracy seems like an issue, but maybe it would be acceptable with lots of care...
Today I saw in the current American Printer magazine two machines featured -- sheetfed laminators with integrated guillotine cutters. I wonder if these (or similar) would be an interesting way to go.
The first was a D&K Group "Double Kote Digital" which looked pretty interesting, though the guillotine accuracy is quoted as "+/- 1/16" " which seems like it would be frustrating in many circumstances introducing so much play into anything that didn't have plenty of room to flow around the bend and plenty in from the edges. The second was a GBC "Delta" one-sided laminator with feeder - a similar setup and I recognize the GBC name. They both seem to require only around 30 sq. ft. of floor space.
I've always though of laminators as the old roll manual-cut machines that leave the clear edge around everything, so I didn't even consider this. Maybe though one of these sheetfed/auto-cut laminators is the ideal solution for perfect gloss coating digital output and would be easier than a UV gloss coater, and also allow really easy short runs, etc.
I wonder how durable such laminated output is?
Does it fold well if used to gloss coat covers or brochures?
Seems like maintenance costs would be very very low, but I imagine material costs would be quite high for the film lamination rolls on a per print basis... maybe not outrageous though.
Cutting accuracy seems like an issue, but maybe it would be acceptable with lots of care...
but without a feeder/cutter I don't think I would have the patience to use a Cantena for the jobs I'm thinking of, and I don't know how I would ever accurately cut the output without a smart & accurate cutter built in. I'm thinking of using it for covers where out run length would be 1000 to 1500 12x18's, but only once a monthy with this run length, and then just miscellaneous jobs in addition. We probably would not have the ROI to justify the machine we need at this point so I didn't want to waste your time until I at least had a very ballpark # to think about for the "entry level" cost of a machine that could feed and trim the output.