My Laminating Film is Wrapped Around the Rollers on My Roll Laminator, What Should I Do?

If you work with roll laminators and you haven’t had a laminating newbie wrap film around the rollers of your laminator, consider yourself lucky. Especially at schools, it seems everyone has at least one horror story involving someone loading the school laminator incorrectly. It isn’t very hard to make a big mess. However, it isn’t the end of the world. Here are a few quick steps to follow to get your laminator back up and running again.

Fixing a Roll Laminator Jam

1. Do not panic. Wrapping laminating film around the rollers of your machine is not going to ruin the laminator. However, if you panic and decide to try to scrape the laminating film off with a razor blade (true story) or run the motor continuously while the machine is jammed (also a true story) you might ruin the laminator. Just remain calm, stop the laminator from running, and under no circumstances use anything sharp on those rollers.
2. Cut off the unlaminated material, separating the film rolls from the machine and rollers, so that no more laminate can wrap around. To do this simply cut the unlaminated material before it reaches the roller. Again, be very careful not to touch the rollers with anything sharp.
3. Try to get any loose laminating film off the machine. Depending on how much material is wrapped around the rollers of the machine this may or may not be difficult. It is often much easier to remove the film from the rollers when they are hot. Of course, be careful not to burn yourself on the hot rollers. However, the rollers usually don’t get too hot so you should be able to work with the laminator even when the rollers are heated.


4. Remove the remaining residue. After you have done your best to peel all the laminating film off the rollers, you will probably notice that there is still residue left on the rollers. If you leave this residue it will stick to any new laminating film that you load and cause you to wrap film around the rollers again. So, you need to remove it. The easiest way to accomplish this is using a scouring pad (one of those green ones from the kitchen) while the rollers are still hot or a laminator cleaning kit. You can use the motor of the laminator to advance the rollers as needed to make sure that all of the areas of the roller are clean. Be sure to remove all of the residue from the silicon rollers. Once the rollers are completely clean you will be ready to load film onto your laminator again.

Preventing Roll Laminator Jams

First and foremost loading film incorrectly basically guarantees a jam so be sure those loading the machine know what they are doing. Additionally, next time you are in the market for a roll laminator look into easy-load roll film. These rolls are designed for specific machines with color coding to help guide you to correct loading and some will fully prevent you from inserting the roll the wrong way.

If the jam wasn’t caused by incorrect loading it is likely due to the adhesive on the rollers. Even without film wrapping onto the rollers, every time you laminate, a little bit of adhesive seeps out and coats the rollers. As time goes by, the adhesive builds up, which can cause jams and possibly damage your machine. As a good rule of thumb you should clean your roll laminator every three to six months.

If you did end up hurting your machine in the panic, we have laminator parts and repairs available. For more information, please call us toll-free at or email us at .