Artgrafix Blog

Recently we helped a customer mount and laminate a graphic printed on adhesive backed vinyl.  We do not usually do this but as they only had a 40 inch laminator and the print was 50 inches wide, we helped them out.  Normally we mount all of our prints first and then over-laminate them.  The reason for this is that it is usually a lot easier to over-laminate second as the print is supported by the board and gives a more uniform pressure.

When we mount a print, we flip the print back over the main rolls after attaching the leading edge.  We the hold the print firmly against the roll to keep it smooth across the roll.  When we did this with a graphic printed on vinyl, we found that with only slight pressure, we could stretch the vinyl film and distort the image.  The good thing was that we noticed the stretching on the white film and not in the image.  To mount successfully, we ran very slowly and with two people holding the image lightly, we got it done.  But we could have made it 10 times easier and less stressful had we laminated the print first.

With the print laminated, we could have pulled it up if we were having any problems (but we couldn’t our way because we would have stretched and distorted the print) and the job could have been done with one instead of three people.   Also after the fact we laminated a print on a sled with a 2 mil cast vinyl laminate and it was a very forgiving film and easy to do.
So while we still linke mounting photos and paper prints first, our new rule is that when working with adhesive backed vinyl, over-laminate it first and that will keep waste to a minimum and make it easier to do.

We have all heard the observation “you can never train enough”.  Being the slightly cynical person that I am, I always thought that was a philosophy of those neer do well HR people who always wanted to justify someone’s poor performance by blaming me for not training them well enough.  And when I sat in their training sessions, all I was really thinking was that my competitors were calling my customers saying “I can get you the same thing as Stover only cheaper!”  Needless to say, training was never high on my agenda.

But that being said, I do attempt to keep everyone relatively well informed on our new products and programs.  What I missed however was that most of the things we do here build on our previous experience and knowledge.  Our basic product drive is to analyze how mounting and laminating is done and try to fabricate products which take steps out of that process.  So what we think we know (always a questionable commodity!) is critically important.  And as much as you as you document and communicate, you still make assumptions.  And as we all know, assumptions can lead to some very bad results.

What brought this home was we were fabricating a board we have made for 4-5 years and we had to change the adhesive to be compatible with a certain paper.  When we went to process the order, we ran the board in an opposite orientation to how we always have processed it before.  When we had issues and we talked about it, it was noted that the order details did not mention orientation and the notes in the file were for other the adhesive so folks did not think that was important.  And remembering things is difficult as everyone wears several hats and is doing more than I ever asked them to do.

So, being humbled and understanding that I have been that 1950’s type of boss (and need to change yet again!), we have asked all of our major suppliers to come in and work with us to provide a training review of their products.  They have all been very agreeable to supporting us in this and while I may have glimpses of a relapse to see my competitor talking to my customers while we train, I know we will be more competitive as we will minimize the expense of mistakes and provide more consistent products going forward.

We have all been there.  Your doing a job you have done many times with success and all you are getting are failures.  The adhesive doesn’t stick, you are getting wrinkles, etc.  And when you review all the steps you have taken, they all seem okay and identical to what you have done in the past.  Don’t think you are alone.  This happens to us several times a year.  What has happened is that something has changed.  Your first reaction may be to look at your laminator and see if it needs service, but many times, that is not the case.

Papers changes, boards change and adhesives can change.  So when things aren’t working, you need to become a detective and examine your process to determine what to do.  We always start with a quick review of the laminator.  We use an IR thermometer to check the temperature of the roll and make sure the nip is okay by placing a board between the rollers and closing them with minimal pressure and make sure we can’t move the board left or right.  If the speed seems normal, we move onto other things.

 If you are experiencing wrinkles, we check the thickness of the boards.  All boards have tolerances and if they are towards the thicker part of the tolerance,  you can have too much pressure and create wrinkles - if so turn the nip to the next largest setting.  If you are running hot prducts with wrinkles, if the board doesn’t seem too thick, the paper may have changes and need might be expanding or moving towards the heat and sticking prematurely.  Papers, like boards, have tolerances too.  You can turn the heat down or just hold onto the end of the print to keep it from moving towards the roll.

If you print is not sticking to the board (as was the case earlier this year when Gator changed their manufacturing process) try preparing your board by wiping it with rubbing alcohol to neutralize any chemicals in the surface.  If that fails or if you are having issues with adhesive sticking to your print, you may need to try a more aggressive adhesive.  If using a heat process you may need to try a cold adhesive.

The key thing to keep in mind is the issue probably has nothing to do with what you are doing.  One of the manufacturers could have a small change (often unbeknowned to their dealers), that while within their tolerances does not react well with the other components you are using.  Just review your process and see what can be tweaked.  Call your laminating supplier.  It is possible that we have heard of similar issues (in addition to Gator changes, Epson has changed their premium papers this year too) and we know how others have worked through the problem.  Five minutes on the phone can sometimes eliminate an hour of frustration.  And just so you know, we do call others who we know run similar films and laminators and picked their brains when these happen to us.

If you have experienced bubbles when mounting or laminating with Sintra, Komatex or solid pvc, you are not alone.  Sintra is an extruded product and can have variances or high and low spots across the board (and even vary small variations can cause trouble with lamination!).  If you do not have enough pressure to press your film down in the “valleys” or are using a more brittle film such as polyester, you can have spots where the film does not adhere resulting in bubbles.

To counter this effect, try the following steps.  First try increasing your pressure by going to the next lower nip setting on your laminator.  If that does not do the trick, try running your pvc ‘across the grain’.  If you look at your pvc, you will notice faint lines or streaks in the pvc.  These represent the machine direction in which the pvc was extruded.  What you want is to insert your pvc into the laminator with those lines parellel to the rollers.  The rollers will follow the high and low spots and help make sure even pressure is mainatined while you are laminating pvc.

When laminating pvc, we recommend using cold or pressure sensitive films.  You can use heat adhesives but make sure you keep the effective temperature on the pvc below 200 degrees Farenheit.

If you have experienced small spots in your laminates or have had prints wrinkle when mounting, the problem may be too much pressure.  This may be true because the boards are slightly thicker (common in the summer) or the roller gap has changed.  What happens is the extra pressure will cause your print to raise just before the rollers and the laminate film will stick to your print before being pressed down by the rollers.  This premature adhesision can be uneven causing air pockets or spots (sometimes called silvering).  Excessive pressure will cause wrinkles.

To eliminate this, either set the gap for the rollers to the next size up (if you are running 3/16″ thick board, try the 1/4″ setting.  If you do that and you do not have enough pressure for good lamination, hold onto to your print at the corners (once the rollers have grabbed your print and keep your print taught and not raised before the rollers.

A majority of our fabrication activity revolves around graphic mounting boards.  The number one reject we face in our qc process is the bowing of boards.  We need to keep these boards as flat as possible so that our customers get the flattest results - because after all, that is why they adhere a print to a board - to keep it nice and flat.  Once a foam board becomes bowed or cups, it is almost impossible to flatten it out. 

The boards we use include foam boards, Gator boards, SBS boards and more.  The boards we receive are mostly larger boards such as 4 by 8 feet and we coat adhesive and cut these into print sizes.  Many things can contribute to bowing, but by far, the number 1 contributor to the bowing of boards is how they are stored.   Also now as summer approaches, the humidity is also changing and the absorption of moisture into the boards also effects the bowing of the boards.  And if you do not store boards properly, the humidity and dampness of summer will be excentuated.

So we do three things to keep our boards stored safe and flat and you can do the same in your operation.  The 3 key things we do are:

• Store Mounting Boards horizontal or flat
• Keep boards in their carton
• Keep boards up off the floor

We have 10 foot racks which allows us to store our boards on shelves.  This accomplishes 2 things - First it gets them off our concrete floor and second by not leaning the boards vertically, we minimize any stress that could lead to a cupping or bowing of the board.  The concrete floor tends to be cooler and help moisture from humidity condense and be absorped easier. 

Keeping the boards in their cardboard box helps to keep the humidity away from the board as it is absorped by the cardboard.  The carton also acts as a buffer to keep the conditions cosistent for the boards.

If you can do these 3 things, you will keep your boards flat and as they have an indefinite shelf life, you can store them that way for years without any problems.

Anybody who ships fragile items via UPS, knows of the monster who lives in their automatic conveyor sorting system.  We believe that the monster has a particular fondness for foam board products and waits for our large boxes to take a bite out of them.  Anyone who has had damaged shipments from the monster knows UPS covers for him (or her) with an almost automatic email titled “insufficient packaging” anytime you make a complaint.  I am sure that Fedex, DHL and others all have similar situations and damaged boxes are not infrequent. 

What we have done is purchase overpack sleeves for may of our foam board box sizes.  We do run into the “oversized limitations” on some of our bigger boxes of foam boards and for those we have changed all of those boxes to double-walled stronger test corrugated board.  For the moment, the monster seems to be tame but I am sure he will make a return from time to time.  As you can tell, our changes may have not been the least costly to make, but first of all we needed to reduce shipping damage significantly.  I am not so sanguine to believe that we have tamed the monster forever, but we will always be on the lookout for better ways to package products.  Any other ideas on this will be read with great interest. 

The cold weather is upon us and here in Connecticut it has been cold the past couple of weeks.  When the weather turns colder, the static electricity seems to increase many fold, making controlling dirt and keeping film from wrinkling more challenging.  We do clean up every day, but this time of year that is not enough especially with some of our adhesive coated products.

One of the products we sell is adhesive coated plexiglas and the adhesive we use is an optically clear adhesive.  That adhesive has a polyester liner which seems to generate more static charge.  That plus the adhesive is very thin to help the clarity and can be difficult to process.   Running this would be the same as over-laminating films with a gloss laminate film.

To control this we have taken the following steps:

• We wet down the floor before we begin to coat plexiglas.
• We wipe down the idler bars and feed in tables with the cloths you use in a dryer with your clothes.
• We control the release liner and make sure it is removed closer to the nip (we make sure the liner is taken off after the film comes in contact with the main roller).  This adds more rigidity to the film as it is applied and it has less chance to wrinkle.

These steps have helped a lot but still sometimes this can be a difficult.  Anybody who has other thoughts on how they manage this through the winter would be welcome.  Thanks.