Swingline Thermal Laminator on sale for $15

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Yeah, that’s how I conned my parents into supplying the equipment I needed to make fake IDs too.

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The laminating foil is just a plastic foil with hot-melt adhesive coating. As such, it has quite some uses.

You can laminate from only one side, for example. The other side then can be coated with adhesive.

You can also laminate flat objects, not necessarily just paper. I had success with RFID coils - wind on a jig made from four nails in a wooden board, secure with a little of hot melt adhesive to keep shape during manipulation, put between the laminating sheets, run through the machine. With added capacitor and a resistor-LED, it was tested for indicating the operation of RFID/NFC readers. The circuit, if made of SMD parts, can be laminated in as well. It worked with 0805 sized parts, 0603 or 0402 ones would be even better.

Also, laminated aluminium foil (with a wire attached to the foil and led out of the sandwich, or a piece of the foil exposed by cutting out a piece of the laminating foil) works pretty well as e.g. EMI shielding between circuitboards.

Edit: Also, thought: what about laminating dried pressed flowers? That could make for quite cool bookmarks.

Edit 2: Also, for laminating small objects, sometimes a bit of additional filler is needed. A few little shavings of a hot-melt glue stick will usually do the job.

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Shit. That is tempting for $15… Laminate ALL THE THINGS!!!

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…also, the laminator needs something from the same brand, for the complete office experience.

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Now thinking of an early scene in KABLUEY.

It’s up to $25 now, but still a pretty good discount.

Dried flowers and other plants would be really cool.

One of the downsides to vacuum packers is the slightest amount of liquid causes seals to fail. @frauenfelder I wonder if this could laminate say a live flower without drying it first and keep color and shape? We need pictures!!

I used to laminate four-leaf clovers I found. They stayed green longer than a pressed one, but they turned an odd sort of green over time instead of brown.

Damned if I could find one now, no idea what books they might have been left in.

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I haven’t found a four leaf in a decade… Ima gonna have to look for them now.

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