What Is a Laminator?
A laminator is a machine used to laminate sheets of film or paper onto wood boards, such as plywood, particleboard, and MDF. Before laminating, a gluing machine is required to apply glue to the wood board, followed by either roll crimping or flat press crimping in the post-laminating process.
Dancer rolls and expander rolls are sometimes used to rectify misalignments and wrinkles when rolling out sheets. With sheet flooring becoming increasingly popular for house interiors, laminators have become an essential piece of equipment.
Uses of Laminators
Laminators are employed in production lines for interior construction materials, such as flooring, by attaching sheets printed with wood grain patterns onto wood boards. Advances in printing technology have resulted in various types of printed sheets, including those that replicate the texture of wood surfaces.
Consequently, a wide range of sheet flooring materials, indistinguishable from solid wood flooring or veneer flooring, has emerged, leading to diversification in laminators’ performance to match the sheets and adhesives used.
Principle of Laminators
Laminators comprise two main components: the laminating device, which fuses the sheet and base material, and the sheet rack unit for rolling out the sheet.
The sheet mounting device positions the rolled sheet and transports it to the laminating device. An air clutch brake or powder brake is utilized to halt the rotation of the rolled sheet.
In the laminating equipment, the key rolls for adhering the substrate and sheet are known as “degassing rolls,” made of plate-finished metal or rubber. Some models allow for temperature adjustment of these rolls by circulating oil through them.