Back in December, my wife got me a laminator. It can handle hot and cold lamination.
Being the lazy slob I am, I haven't gotten lamination pouches yet, so I haven't used it for my games.
She used it the other day for a tag on a teddy bear she made, and it worked very well! So my silly question is...
My laminator can do hot and cold lamination. What is the difference?
Other than, of course, one method laminates with heat and the other doesn't. I mean, let's not be ridiculous... :)
I've read that cold lamination allows one to laminate an entire sheet, and then cut the sheet into cards. Does hot lamination have any benefits for us? Does cold lamination have any drawbacks?
Thanks!
I have been enjoying this site for a while and have meant to register for a while... Sorry my first post is so authoritative, but I have been doing a lot of prototyping with different lamination materials. In fact, hot laminates (the ones that I have been using) have an adhesive coating on one side that melts at a specific temperature and adheres to anything it touches. I have done several sets of prototype cards using a heat activated laminate and they cut and play just like cold laminated cards.
The main difference to me is the thickness. Hot laminating pouches are typically 3 mil (thousandths of an inch) thick and, I feel, are too thick for a typical card game (about the thickness of a laminated menu). They come out a little too stiff to shuffle and are VERY thick. I managed to find some thinner laminate (1.5 mil) -- that also comes in matte as well as glossy finishes -- that works perfectly for me. I have used it with both 110 lb card stock and a home made cardstock (2 - 24 lb bond sheets with an opaque middle) and it comes out perfect.
Beware, though, not all heat activated laminates are created equal. Be sure to check the specs for using the laminates. Most home laminators available now typically use adhesives that melt at around 245 degrees (f). The thinner laminates I have used (Seal-Lamin is the manufacturer) have a polyethylene adhesive that melts at 275 degrees (f). That means that I can't use my preferred laminate in a typical hot laminator (though I have found that it can be applied by hand using a household iron).
I have used cold laminates mainly for prototyping tuck-boxes (hot laminating only one side tends to overly warp cardstock). It works VERY well (just don't get the laminates that are repositionable).
Others have posted that they use a Xyron type cold laminator. I am interested to know if the laminate comes out thinner than the typical hot-laminate (3 mil) pouches.