A pouch laminator is made up of one or two sets of rollers, heating elements, a cooling tray, and a protective housing. To use a pouch laminator, you turn on the heat switch and the run switch. When the indicator light turns off, the laminator is hot enough to begin laminating. You then take the product to be laminated, position it inside a laminating pouch, slide the laminating pouch into a paper carrier, and insert the carrier into the front (feed) area of the laminator. The laminator does the rest. It conducts your product over the heating elements, which melt the adhesive inside the laminating pouch. The rollers apply pressure to the heated pouch, encapsulate your product in the laminate, and push the product out to the cooling tray. Then you simply slide your finished, laminated product out of the carrier and re-use the carrier for the next piece to be laminated.
Your pouch laminator has a temperature gauge, which you can adjust to apply less heat for thin pouches and more heat for thicker pouches.
If you have a four-roller pouch laminator, you need only touch the carrier to the nip of the front feed rollers in your machine, and they will conduct the carrier evenly over the heating elements to the back pull rollers, which conduct the carrier out of the laminator. If you have a two-roller laminator, there are no feed rollers.
If you are laminating a 12" x 18" menu size pouch, we recommend that you (1) turn off the run switch, (2) place the carrier squarely against the nip of the front feed rollers, and (3) turn on the run switch. This will ensure the carrier moves straight through the laminator without catching on the sides.