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Yes, laminating equipment is needed for eco-solvent, mild-solvent ink prints! Everyone who enters a booth of Mutoh, Roland, Mimaki, and all the Korean and Chinese solvent printers are also told, "no lamination needed." In other words, the main selling point of 50% of the printers sold today is, "no lamination needed." Thus what we may need, more than (and in addition to), a glossary, is a "why do you need lamination, even with a solvent ink printer?" The reason you need lamination is that abrasion is an issue, especially with eco-solvent inks on some materials. So don’t give up your laminator quite yet. While on the subject of laminators, the brands that we see the most often are AGL, Advanced Greig Laminators Coda
Of these the company that we know the best is Drytac; they provided several days of training at their facilities. I have seen the booth of Drytac at trade shows around the world, both in the US and Europe. Yes, even with UV-cured flatbed printers, you still need lamination! 99% of the time you are told that “no lamination needed with UV-cured inkjet prints.” But what about floor graphics? Floor graphics need two kinds of lamination: non-slip and protection from abrasion. Plus many materials that can receive UV-curable inks have problems with abrasion. So often lamination is not only useful, it is necessary. The reason you are told that no lamination is necessary is to help sell the printer. Since FLAAR does not sell printers, or laminators: it is easier for us to indicate the true pros and cons. UV-curable inkjet printers are among the most important technology in this decade. Indeed FLAAR is the de-facto leading resource for evaluations of UV printers. Yes, most UV-cured prints won’t need lamination, but some do.
First posted August 6, 2007
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