advice needed on UV coater

[artbot]

my main buyer (a good friend) has informed me that he had a salesman come by today to discuss leasing a $120,000 uv roller coater. his business does over $5million a year. so i know he can afford it. but the coater will be used to coat only 20-50 (4' x 6') inkjet canvases a month. 

that seems like a complicated expensive solution for such low volume.

does anyone have any advice for what would be best at this volume? spray, roll, daige?

thanks in advance.

[dgberg]

I am using my laminator (hot roll) to overlaminate canvas for all gatorboard.dibond and multiply mounts. Works on gallery wraps too.
Print Guard UV Luster heat set laminte overtop of canvas is quick easy and cost effective. You can gang the images on a wide canvas and run 50 of them through in under 15 minutes. A good used machine might be around 5k with a new one 10k and up.
The matte Print Guard is a little milky looking for me but you might like it.
Just another option.

[LenR]

Doesn't Clearstar make one?

[LenR]

Dan,
Doesn't the laminator crush the texture of the canvas?
Does the laminate make even contact from the peak to the valley.

[dgberg]

No, the heat seems to almost melt the adhesive/laminate down into the low spots of the canvas for lack of a better way to explain it.
I really like the Luster finish. It is as close to a full gloss as I would want to go and the canvas texture really pops with this finish and the best protection you can get.

[LenR]

What settings are you using? (nip, pressure and temp.)
And it doesn't flatten the canvas texture?
This is a 2/1 vinyl correct?
That's gotta beat any other method of coating!

[dgberg]

This Seal laminator has nip opening settings for substrates from 1/16' to 3/8". I do one print at a time so some things would have to change in the workflow if you are working off a roll.
I lay the canvas print on a sled of gatorboard 3/16" and set the nip opening to 3/16" Print Guard is a low temp material and I set mine to the midlevel temp 125/195. You can read a little more about the product on Seals website although they do not say anything about canvas. I had the Seal rep in here about a year ago and he put me onto the product. As always I would do my own tests with regards to flattened canvas texture. It may or may not be acceptable to you.

Canvas print on sled being laminated with Print Guard.

Ps. Just went back throgh a bunch of trial prints. I tried Print Shield Luster on canvas (Its meant for RC paper prints)
The finish is as smooth as a babys bottom,no texture at all. So if you try this laminating, Print Shield is not made for canvas you want Print Guard.

[LenR]

OK, so your nip is @ 0 to -1/16.  Do you use just the weight of the feed roller or do you add pressure?  Speed of 2-3 fpm?
This is cool...

[dgberg]

I am using my 44 Ultra which only has slots for setting substrate thickness. I just set my nip opening to substrate thickness of 3/16" no additional pressure. It likes to be heated properly so at least for me the slower the better 2+fpm is right on
On my bigger 62 Base I have the crank wheel for setting manual pressure/nip opening. It's a cold roll machine only so just used for mounting.

[artbot]

so the two main options that would fit this production pace would be a seal low temp hot lam (dry easy, doesn't require large infeed and outfeed tails.  or does it?)

what is the cost per square foot for Print Guard UV Luster?

or the clearlam 1600r water based coater?  maybe better for a long run but not so easy for one or two prints.  requires 3m of tail to load the materal.

http://www.marabu-northamerica.com/products/laminators.html

[dgberg]

so the two main options that would fit this production pace would be a seal low temp hot lam (dry easy, doesn't require large infeed and outfeed tails.  or does it?)

what is the cost per square foot for Print Guard UV Luster?

or the clearlam 1600r water based coater?  maybe better for a long run but not so easy for one or two prints.  requires 3m of tail to load the materal.

http://www.marabu-northamerica.com/products/laminators.html

38" x 150 ' roll $268.44  .56 per sq. ft.
Drytac also sells a liquid laminating machine.

[LenR]

Artbot,
Except the cost of the machine the liquid will be MUCH less per ft than vinyl.  I can't recall seeing anything much less that .40/ft but most everything I use is heavier than 3mil.
Does your client have a heated laminator?  Dan's approach might be worth a try.
See u back on s101:)

[LenR]

Oh I forgot to mention that clean-up time on a liquid laminator can be significant.

[artbot]

it says in the video "self cleaning".  i figure that can't be completely a self clean.  looks like something you would want to set up and do a large batch with.  which for this company would probably be the case.  i don't think they ever sell just one or two canvases to a project.  some of their projects are 2 million square foot complexes.