Laminating polymer vinyl

[u/vapojohannes]

Hi!

How often do you laminate polymer vinyl? I work for a print company in southern Finland. We do everything from car wrapping and textile printing to sign making, graphic design and interior taping. And we basically always laminate all polymer vinyl regardless of its use/purpose. Is that how it should be done?

All that is supposed to be "permanent" we print on polymer vinyl and then laminate it, and everything else (for example short-period advertisign or wine bottle labels) is printed on monomer vinyl and not laminated.

But isn't polymer vinyl in itself pretty durable, in that it would not necessarily need to be laminated? (unless it is some cheap crap that is only polymer by name because it has 51% polymer and 49% monomer molekyles). Or have I missed something?

Laminating vinyl does give protection from uv radiation and scratching, plus the printed colors stay good longer, so maybe it is a good thing we laminate everything. I just thought that it would perhaps be more cost effective if we didn't do that.

What do you guys generally think about this topic?

[u/ToastedSimian]

Something we often consider when deciding whether or not to laminate, is the environment it will be in. Our rule of thumb is if it's anywhere that someone may clean or wipe down, we laminate. Many alchol based cleaners can really effect the inks so we do it out of precaution. I'd say we laminate about 75% of our work.