Pressing is an Art not a Science

Throughout the past 10 years I've helped hundreds of companies with pressing, and I’ve come to realize that if you can allow yourself to toss out the old thinking of viewing pressing as a “science”, and regard it more so as an “art”, you can reveal the true underlying explanations to many of the issues you have or will run into with varying films. There are so many variables that can affect the outcome, and unfortunately it takes only one inaccuracy to cause a chain of events that can lead to multiple problems down the road.

Some variables to watch for:
-Temperature of room, film or board
-Humidity in room
-Preheat, Cycle Time and Temp
-Duration of Membrane Application
-Space between components, jigs or table
-Height of pedestal or pin system
-Thickness, Gloss level or color of foil
-Plasticizer content of foil
-Amount of Glue applied
-Bars of Pressure
There are other variables, so please feel free to post your comments.

Aside from looking at just the quantity of potential disruptions, it’s also important to realize that it only takes one to throw a chain of events into play that will impact the rest of your settings. Let me give an example:

Lets say that you get a request for a new color, and press it with the same preheat settings you have been using all year with your other films. When you press it, however, wrinkles show up. After speaking with the supplier, you are recommended to lower your preheat; however, this seems to create a new problem, as the film doesn’t form into the details of the door like you want it to. In summary, this new design doesn’t work well with your existing preheat settings, nor does it perform correctly when you make the adjustments to your settings. So what’s wrong with this vinyl?

The solution may be due to something as simple as the spacing you allow between your components. For the past year, your setup may have been working perfectly for you – your components were close together, but after trial and error you discovered that the longer preheat worked on the vinyls you were using at the time. However, those settings cause the vinyl to wrinkle on the new foil design, and now no longer work. In tinkering with your setup, you try something new and move the component parts slightly further apart, which allows for more film to reach into the profiles. This solves the problem, not only for the new film, but amazingly also for the old films. Additionally, the preheat is able to be lowered by 30 seconds, saving valuable time in your production. The problem was not solved with a typical adjustment in the settings, but rather by an outlying factor that required a little “thinking outside of the box”.

I used the above story to demonstrate how problems in pressing cannot be solely blamed on one variable. A cause and effect relationship exist amongst all the settings, both obvious and hidden, that can really change the nature of pressing. Some may say that there are no perfect settings, no “one size fits all” approach to pressing components - and to that I would agree. The glue, board, film, machine, pressing environment, etc. – they are all contributing variables to the formula that is your production. If you do not have a problem, then your variables are obviously working in your favor; however, if you ever do have a problem, then it’s important to be mindful of all the variables that play a role in your production line, and how they may ultimately be affecting your bottom line.

So by letting yourself see thermofoil component pressing as an art, rather than a science, you can open yourself up to all of the hidden variables that are really impacting your final product.