

As the pouch is heated under pressure from the machine’s rollers, it helps to bond the two sides of the pouch tightly together across the front and back surfaces, forming a protective cover and seal around all four sides. In the case of most modern pouch laminators, the plastic cover placed around the document being fed into the machine is pre-coated with a special sort of extruded adhesive on all of its inside surfaces. We’ll help you decide what to look for in a laminator, and choose which sorts might be the most useful across a range of particular applications, environments and workloads.Ī laminator machine typically uses a combination of heat, pressure and an internal roller mechanism to apply a thin plastic cover to paper documents or other items, In the most common scenario, the paperwork in question is fed into the laminating machine one page at a time, sandwiched in loose plastic sheets or lamination pouches. In this guide, we’ll look at some of the more common types of machines, lamination pouches and accessories available from UK suppliers. Cold laminators tend to be cheaper to buy and run, but the pouches used in this type of machine are often considerably more expensive.Cold laminators, as the name suggests, use pressure only to seal an adhesive plastic pouch or film around the item being laminated, and are most often configured as small laminating machines for short-run projects or very occasional document preparation.Examples could include items made with types of vinyl or adhesives, carbon copies, some forms of inkjet printing, and certain types of photographs.Cold laminators - Non-heating versions are also available for handling documents or items that might be sensitive to high temperatures, or easily damaged during the standard hot lamination process.Pouch laminators must be allowed to heat up to optimal temperature before a document is manually fed through inside a clear plastic pouch or wallet lined with adhesive, which is then pressed together under hot rollers to form a sealed cover.Pouch laminators - this is the most common form of desktop-type laminating machine you’re likely to encounter in day-to-day scenarios, very widely used for both at-home laminating projects and in a range of standard office environments.This type of laminator is often the most flexible and is generally used in large-scale production environments where many (or bigger format) items need to be processed quickly.Items are placed on a bottom layer of film and fed into the machine, where the hot rollers automatically align and press down a separate top layer as the items are being passed through.Film laminators - these machines tend to use two separate layers of laminating film, and incorporate the top layer into the laminator mechanism itself.In broad terms, most laminating machines come in one of three main configurations: The latter tend to accommodate a wider array of temperature settings and document sizes, and usually feature multiple sets of rollers for helping achieve a flawless finish in more demanding applications. There are lots of different types of laminating machines for sale on today’s market, ranging from small and inexpensive desktop varieties for home and small office use through too much larger and more costly industrial versions. The resulting plastic coating around the document can also help to enhance colours and all-round presentability, as well as providing a wipe-clean surface for temporarily marking up the surface using dry-erase pens. In these sorts of contexts, lamination generally involves attaching a fixed plastic wrapper or cover to the item of paperwork in question, generally for the purposes of safeguarding it against damage and ensuring it stays in pristine condition for as long as possible. While many other sorts of documents (as well as non-paper items and surfaces) can be laminated, protecting and embellishing key documents for presentation or display purposes tends to be the most common use of the technology in everyday scenarios for the majority of homes, schools and offices in the UK.

Laminating is primarily a handy way of preserving important documents and papers - this might typically include items such as:
