MyBinding Knowledge Base
My laminating film is wrapped around the rollers on my roll laminator, what should I do?
If you work at a school and you haven’t had a teacher or parent volunteer wrap laminating film around the rollers of your laminator, consider yourself lucky. It seems like nearly every school secretary has a at least one horror story involving someone loading the school laminator incorrectly. And trust, me it isn’t too 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…
First, 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 knife (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.
After you have calmed down, you are ready to get down to the business of fixing your laminator. The first step in this process is cut off the unlaminated material so that no more laminate can wrap around the rollers. 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.
After the unlaminated material is cut loose from the machine the next step is to try to get any loose laminating film off of 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 don’t actually get that hot and you should be able to work with the laminator when the rollers are heated.
After you have done your best to peel all of the laminating film off the rollers that you can, 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. Thus you need to remove. 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. 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.
< Over the years, a number of customers have asked me whether they can use twin loop wire with their plastic comb binding machine. These customers often don’t want to have to buy a brand new machine but like the look and feel of twin loop wire binding. However, the answer to their question isn’t as simple as it seems. You see, they actually do make twin loop wire that is designed to work with the plastic comb binding hole pattern. With that said, if you want to use these wires you are going to need a way to close the wires. What is Spiral-O Wire? Let me explain a little bit more…There is a product that we carry called Spiral-O Wire. This wire has 19 loops and is designed to work with the hole pattern from a plastic comb binding machine. Spiral-O Wire is sometimes called Wire Combs or Ibico Wire and was originally designed for use with some of the older Ibico binding machines. A number of the older Ibico plastic comb binding machines also included a twin loop wire closer on the front of them to allow users to use both plastic combs and wire. This 19 loop wire was designed for this purpose. What Equipment is Needed? As the Ibico brand has been phased out by GBC and all of the older Ibico plastic binding machines have been replaced with new models, they no longer have the twin loop wire closer on the front of them. This presents a problem in trying to use these spiral-o wires since you can’t use the wires without a way to close them. One of the only options left is to purchase a Twin Loop wire closer. However, since twin loop wire closers are not incredibly cheap this option usually only appeals to users who have larger electric plastic comb binding machines. Otherwise, it is often advisable to simply buy a low end 3:1 pitch twin loop wire binding machine (the supplies are cheaper). This being said, if you have one of the older Ibico binding machines that has a wire closer included you are in luck. The Spiral-O binding supplies that we carry will work perfectly with your machine and you will be able to use both plastic combs and wire depending on your needs. These Spiral-O binding supplies are available in Black, Silver, White, Blue and Red and in sizes up to 1″ in diameter. If you aren’t sure what type of wire binding supplies that you need to work with your machine simply give us a call. Our trained sales representatives will be glad to help you find the correct supplies for use with your machine.(Read More)
