Cold laminating Machine for Mounting Photo's

[rgvsdigitalpimp]

Hey all.  Quick question for everyone who has used a cold laminating machine.  I'm looking into buying a starter cold laminating machine to play around with and get my feet wet in this process.  If I wanted to mount a photo to foam core and then laminate it, this won't work, right?  I need to laminate the photo first and then stick it to the foam core board?  I've been watching a lot of youtube videos showing how to use the manual rolling laminator to help stick the photo to the board but not actually laminating the finished product.  Is this possible with this cold laminator?  By the way, this is the laminator I'm looking at.  For $125 free shipping can't beat it. 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Laminating-Machine-Cold-Laminator-25-Manual-Brand-New-Free-Shipping-/160859115237?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2573f34ee5

[Wayne Fox]

I have a couple of little manual laminators similar to this and they can work pretty OK.

Foam core can be tough with them but it can be done. I prefer pre-coated art board for the mounting. You are correct in that you need to laminate the print first.  The biggest issue will be dirt ... any minor spec will leave a bump in the print.

To apply the laminate, I've gotten the best results using a carrier board.  This can be made from a stout piece of plexiglass to which you adhere a piece of release paper.  The release paper to make this requires it to be single sided release paper.  To give you an idea of this, you would apply the laminate much like they apply the facemount adhesive in this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcUgilc1mqU

[bill t.]

Saw a demonstration of over-laminating RC papers with adhesive backed film.  The guy used a hard plex carrier sheet as Wayne mentioned, but added a thin but relatively soft sheet of fine art paper between the RC and the plex.  The theory is that would prevent any grits from creating a bump upward into the laminate sheet, bumps would instead be impressed downward into the soft art paper sheet.  The demonstrator claimed he could then "do surgery" on the back of the RC paper with an Xacto to mitigate bumps from any trapped material before going on to the mounting step.  Have not laminated or adhesive mounted prints in quite a while, but should mention that almost all the RC papers I mounted by hand pressure only later developed bubbles, so it's really important to get the print and the adhesive sheets attached with a whole lot of pressure.

At the same show I looked at Coda laminators.  If you decide to adopt the laminating route, spend the money, they're so much better and will last forever.  I have a larger version of the cheap one in your URL that I sometimes use for glue-mounting 44" canvas.  It's adequate, but lately it's developing some cyclic thumpa-bumpa which is probably enough to create ripples on harder media.  In production you would probably need to replace the cheap ones more than once a year.

[Dan Berg]

Purchased both of my Seal laminators on Ebay. One local pickup the other truck freight from Michigan to Pennsylvania.
Not a big Ebay fan so I guess I lucked out as both work flawlessly. The 44" has a heated roll and the 62" Base model has a low temp roll and is considered a cold roll machine.
The only thing the hot roll is used for is to apply Print Guard Luster (Seal) over canvas. Do not use it often but it relly works great. Nice luster finish with more protection then you will ever need.
Both machines were in the $2500@range,so deals are out there and these will last a lifetime.