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The Falcon Laminator is able to perform several heat activated applications, including mounting,
overlaminating, simultaneous mounting, and encapsulating. Let’s start with heat activated
mounting. Before proceeding, you need to calibrate the Falcon for the mounting process. On the
front of the Falcon Laminator, you’ll find the set up panel. The bottom and top heaters
each have their own controls, an on-off switch and a temperature controller. For this process,
heat activated mounting only, select 1 for the top heater to turn it on. Adjust the temperature
controller to 250 degrees Fahrenheit, or 113 degrees Celsius. For the lower heater, select
0 to turn it off because it is not used for the mounting only operation. Since the lower
heater is off, there’s no need to adjust the temperature. The motor has 3 separate
controls, auto-stop, forward-reverse, and the motor speed control. Adjust the motor
speed to 2, select forward on the forward-reverse switch. Set the motor auto-stop switch to
auto. To control the cooling process you would normally use the fans control switch. Since
we’re mounting only, we will select 0 to turn the fans off. Now that the controls are
set, you are ready to mount your print. When mounting prints to sub-straights, you
should only use the minimum amount of roll pressure needed to accomplish the task. While
higher nip pressure can make the adhesive board bond faster, excess pressure can run
the risk of crushing the board and potentially damaging the rollers. To set the top roller
height, use the same pressure as previously demonstrated for pressure sensitive mounting.
Now that the Falcon is set up correctly, we’ll demonstrate the procedures for Orca Board
Mounting and Hot Film Mounting. For Orca Board Mounting, lay the print on the Orca Board.
Line up the leading edge of the print, to the leading edge of the board. Use tape or
a hot tack iron to hold the leading edge of the print down unto the board. If you don’t
fully cover the board with the print, you may want to piece of release liner over the
print. If you don’t do this, and the machine is running too slowly, adhesive may be transferred
to the laminating roller. In addition, the toner from the electrostatic prints will be
deposited unto the roll and will require a lot of cleaning effort to remove. Once the
print is ready, feed the print Orca Board package through the nip, you can use either
the footswitch or the auto switch. With Protech’s hot mount film you can also create your own
Orca Boards for heat activated mounting. Hot mount film can be used either in a roll form
to precoat the boards, or in a cut sheet form to coat individual boards. It will take about
2 minutes for the mount adhesive to fully cure. After the curing time, you would trim
the print to size completing the procedure.