Struggling to pick the right laminator for airbrush art? ✨ This selection guide for laminators cuts through hype—tailored to airbrush studios, customizers, and gear pros. Learn how to choose machines that handle fine details (t-shirts, helmets, automotive decals), resist ink smudging, and integrate with airbrush workflows. Expert tips: adjustable pressure for delicate designs, portability for on-site gigs, and cost-effective film compatibility. Avoid rookie mistakes—discover why 80% of airbrush artists regret ignoring laminator-airbrush synergy. Includes top 3 models for small shops vs. large-scale production. Your go-to airbrush industry laminator roadmap—no fluff, just results!
First, the type of laminator and application scenarios
in the airbrush industry, commonly used laminator has a variety of types, including cold laminator, hot laminator, liquid laminator, UV laminator, vacuum laminator and so on. Among them, cold laminating machine (referred to as cold laminating machine), thermal laminating machine and liquid laminating machine are the most popular. The purpose of laminating is not only limited to waterproof, some high-end customers also want to improve the picture in the outdoor weather resistance or increase the surface brightness of the picture. With the increasing width of printers, such as the most popular indoor photo machine width of 1.6M, outdoor airbrush 2.5M and 3.2M, the working width of the laminating equipment has also been increased to adapt to the market and meet customer demand.
Second, laminating machine market development history and status quo
Imported laminating machine in the early days: review the development of laminating machine in the Chinese market, the early entry of imported laminating machine brands are the United States SEAL, the United States GBC, South Korea GMP, as well as some European brands. However, the high price of imported equipment, which was about 300,000 – 400,000 RMB per unit at that time, greatly limited its popularity in the Chinese market. Only the U.S. SEAL brand laminating equipment in the large-format laminating industry to occupy a certain share, according to incomplete statistics, its 1.6M width of cold laminating laminating equipment and hot and cold laminating dual-use laminating equipment in the country about 100 units. However, due to differences in laminating habits at home and abroad, some machines are in a state of shutdown. Reasons include the lack of specialized domestic agents, after-sales service is not guaranteed, technical information and manuals are not translated, and imported equipment, although more functional, but the design focuses on roll-to-roll laminating needs, ignoring the single sheet of laminating and the use of different widths due to the inconvenience caused by the frequent replacement of cold laminating film, reduces the efficiency of laminating work, increasing the intensity of the operator’s work.
The rise of domestic laminating machine: domestic cold laminating and laminating machine because of the simple structure, cheap, easy to use, won the majority of customers recognized as an indispensable supporting equipment for airbrush and widely popularized. With the continuous improvement of the product line of enterprises such as Fu Lei, but also the independent development of the liquid laminating machine, sheet laminating machine, glass laminating machine and other various shaped machine.
Third, the choice of different sizes of enterprises laminating machines
Large airbrush factory: With the introduction of domestic airbrush, printing consumables prices reduced, the cost of airbrush down, the popularity rate increased. In some large and medium-sized cities, the strength of the airbrush company in the form of factories set up, they are modernized management, high-quality output quality and good after-sales service to win large-scale customer orders, and more international brands to undertake national publicity orders. These companies focus on the company’s image and product quality, in the choice of equipment usually imported brand printers and supporting the company’s laminating machine, the production scale is generally more than 10 – 20 indoor and outdoor airbrush and supporting the company’s laminating machine 6 – 8 sets of Fu Lei.
Graphic companies and digital printing store: in recent years the gradual development of graphic companies or digital printing store to high-quality digital output as the main business, such as photos, bids, menus, etc.. Its digital output equipment is mainly Xerox, Epson, HP and other high-precision small-format printing equipment, in the choice of laminator, but also more to the company or other high-quality laminator for the first choice of supporting.
Fourth, laminator selection points
Product price considerations: price is one of the key factors for customers to choose products. In recent years, rising raw material prices, laminating equipment, the main raw materials for steel and rubber. Some low-end laminating equipment manufacturers in order to reduce costs, do not choose the national standard seamless steel pipe or rubber raw rubber, but the use of thin-walled welded pipe or recycled water pipe and other poor quality raw materials, rubber recycled recycled rubber. The use of steel tubes with no guarantee of quality, can not guarantee the flexural deformation of the rubber rollers; recycled rubber lack of elasticity, covering PVC and other plates are very prone to deformation, leading to early retirement of the machine. Taking a 1.6M wide machine as an example, the selling price of such low-quality products usually ranges from 1000 – 2000 RMB. Therefore, you can not choose these products only because of the low price, but need to consider the quality and cost-effective.
Quality standard review: there is no national standard for laminating machinery, different manufacturers implement their own corporate standards. Take 1.6M laminating machine as an example, the weight of the whole machine varies greatly, the lightest is less than 50Kg, and even some enterprises in order to increase the weight of the steel rollers in the internal filling of cement and other high-density filler to improve the weight of the rubber rollers. This practice does not really reflect the quality of the equipment. In the selection, attention should be paid to the actual performance indicators of the equipment, such as the material characteristics of the rollers (including hardness, elasticity, abrasion resistance, etc.), the stability of the mechanical structure (whether easy to deformation, jitter, etc.), the accuracy of the film (whether it can be uniform, flat film) and the durability of the equipment (refer to the manufacturer to provide the warranty period, customer feedback, etc.). In addition, we should also examine the ease of operation of the equipment, such as whether it is easy to adjust the laminating parameters, whether it is convenient to replace the laminating material, etc. These factors will affect the long-term use of the process of work efficiency and quality of laminating.
For the spray painting industry, laminating is the last process of the entire printing, once the laminating led to the picture scrap, for customers is a serious loss. Therefore, when selecting the laminator, it is important to consider the price, quality standards and other factors, choose a high-quality laminator, in order to protect the smooth operation of the spray painting business and product quality is stable and reliable, so as to gain a foothold in the fierce competition in the market and achieve good economic benefits.
JinGe Technology
Jiangxi Jinge Technology Co.
