What is a Cold Laminator?

Lamination is a process that protects documents from deterioration and damage. While many homes use lamination as a way to preserve photos, businesses can also use this protection process with daily documents that are frequently handled. The professional appearance of the finished product is also a huge benefit of lamination. There are two types of laminator, the cold laminator, and the hot laminator.

Cold laminators use no heat to seal and protect the document. Many cold laminators use no electricity with the movement of the document through the machines being performed with a hand crank. More sophisticated models may come with trimmers that require an electrical outlet to trim excess plastic from the edges of the document. Cold laminators can be used on nearly every material. They are best used on materials that are sensitive to heat like certain photos and fragile documents.

There are cold laminators that work with pouches and those that work with rolls of plastic. The cold nature of the laminating means the plastic needs to have an adhesive that will permanently bind when the edges are pressed together. This is often referred to as pressure sensitive lamination. Pouch laminators can be purchased small enough to handle only credit cards and business cards while roll laminators can reach a width of 27 inches or more. Some specialty pouch laminators can be used with wide format documents. Popular brands of cold laminators include Banner American, Fellowes, and GBC.

Cold laminators tend to be safer than heat laminators. Some heat based laminating machines can reach temperature of 200 degrees or higher which can lead to injury if the user is not trained on the machine. The cold laminator is not heated based thus the chance of injury is lower. Cold laminators also never require cleaning like the rolls of a hot laminating machine. This reduces the maintenance cost of the machine. Due to the fact that many cold laminators are hand cranked, using the cold machine for high output lamination may not be a viable solution.

Choosing a cold laminator can be as simple as deciding how wide the largest document to be laminate will be. The wider the surface area, the higher the price for the machine. Pouch cold laminators tend to be easier to use and could be more helpful in the home environment where paper sized documents or photos are the most common items being laminated. In the office setting, a roll laminator using no heat may be the best choice.

Cold laminators range in price from just under $20 for the smallest home units to more than $2500 for a larger, office machine. In addition to the price of the laminator, the cost and availability of the supplies for the machine should be taken into consideration when researching a machine to purchase.

Cold laminating machines and the supplies used on the machines can be purchased online. It is important to choose only a trusted seller / website before placing your laminating machine order. It is also essential to locate a source of laminating materials when buying the cold laminating machine. The machines can also be purchased from a retail store.