Welcome to MyBinding.com!
This is How to Foil Laminate!
For those who are new to this, we’ll first
go over the basic steps. We also highly encourage
everyone to view our written knowledge base
article.
Here’s the supplies you’ll need: your
laminating foil, some scissors, a project
printed with a laser printer, a carrier, and
finally a pouch laminator.
First, open your carrier and place your project
inside. Now take your foil and cut it appropriately
to cover the correct portion of your project.
Take that piece and rest it in its position.
If you have other colors and places to fill,
continue to do so.
It’s important to cover the printed portions
of your project that you do not want to foil.
If you don’t then some of the print will
transfer onto your carrier and make a mess
on other later projects.
Now insert the carrier into the laminator.
It’s best to either hold or get something
to keep the project flat so that the foil
does not fall from within the carrier.
When it’s done, remove the carrier from
the back, open it up and proceed to peal off
the foil and uncover your project.
Now chances are you’ll see spots in your
foiled project, which means we have to go
over steps for quality control.
I wish there was an easy one-and-done way
to get the best quality—but there are so
many factors in play that it’s going to
take some trial and error on your part.
So first, when printing you have to print
on a laser printer, no other printers will
work. The foil adheres best with solid black
projects—if you have colors, convert them
to black or don’t laminate them. This also
means no gradients or opaqueness[transparency]. And it’s
best to use vector based images—texts are
vector based, and programs like Adobe Illustrator
create vector based art.
The smoother the paper, the better your results.
And as long as you can print it in your printer
you will be able to foil it.
For choosing a laminator, it should have temperature
controls for 10 mil, but preferable one that
you can set the actual temperature manually
to 300 degrees fahrenheit or higher. Slow
down your laminator, too. And make sure the
throat of your laminator is large enough to
fit your projects!
When you choose not to foil part of your project,
cover it with paper to avoid ink transferring
onto your carrier and ruining future projects.
And we’ve found that for some reason, some
foils just adhere better than others.
Not every printer toner provides the best
results. Some toners adhere better than others,
and printers with a high dots per inch(DPI)
will provide smoother edges and nicer results.
For serious professional foiling, check out
foil fusers and foil stamping machines—these
are expensive, commercial usage machines.
Follow this information and you should be
able to achieve some great looking foil laminated
projects!