Panels III- Lamination and Substrate Prep

For "Cold War Berlin" each panel will be effectively turned into a sticker before mounting to the gatorfoam substrate. The bottom layer is a pressure activated adhesive with a paper backing, while the top layer consists of a UV filtering matte lamination, which will protect the panels from fading and damage. The laminator was first webbed and adjusted to the proper tension, then checked for wrinkles, air bubbles etc. It is always good to do a test with a blank or duplicate.

Once your piece begins feeding through the rollers there's no adjusting, so make sure it is square with the feed tray and within the limits of the laminating materials. Our widest panel was 36" wide, and the laminator is 38", so there's little room for error. For an introduction into the world of large scale lamination, see here.


If possible, prepare multiple pieces and begin feeding them in as the one ahead comes through to avoid wasting laminating materials. Each piece must be brushed clean with a soft-hair brush to ensure that no dust/debris is trapped under the lamination. This can marr the professional appearance of your pieces.

Our 0.5" white gatorfoam substrate was prepped for mounting by painting the edges red to match our panel borders. Pieces of similar size were stacked and painted with a roller.

Panels were then stacked with small spacers and allowed to dry. Next, each panel will be thoroughly cleaned with a brush and tack cloth to remove and dust, debris or particles before the mounting begins.

Panels II- Printing

Printing began this week. We don't want to give too much away just yet, but so far progress is good. Panels are being printed using Adobe Illustrator and the HP DesignJet 800PS. At approximately 1 minute per megabite (Post Script processing speed), we estimate a total printing time of around 33 hours. Luckily, most jobs can be set to run over night and on weekends. Keep checking back for more updates.

Panels I - Construction

Before moving your materials into your printing and laminating space, make sure to clean dust and particles off with a brush and/or vaccum. These these little specks can contaminate other "clean" machinery (computers, printers etc.) or get laminated over top of, leaving small bumps on your finished product.


To ensure straight clean cuts, concentrate on the fence, not the blade. Pressure should be exerted on the diagonal towards the fence to the right of the blade. Feeding from the opposite side can cause binding, over-reaching and wobble.


Make sure that your measurements are accurate, and use a rip fence and the factory edge to produce square corners and straight sides. Feed all materials through the blade to the other side.


It also helps to have a pair of extra hands when cutting large materials. Set your blade so that the gullets between the teeth are at the same height as the top of the material.



With large pieces of material, it is very helpful to have something to act as side and through supports. Here we improvised with overturned material carts, boosted to height with scrap wood and held in place with cinder blocks. Please plan your cuts well, keep your space clean, check your access and movement and review safety guidelines.
Panel construction began this week. For "Cold War Berlin" panels are being designed using Adobe Illustrator with a combination of historic photographs, original text and graphics, and custom colours. On of the most important aspects to exhibit development in public institutions is budget, and for construction, that means maximizing use of material. Our substrate, white Gatorfoam, comes in 4' x 8' sheets. Our original panel dimensions were 2' x 3', but were adjusted very slightly to allow for the kerf of the table saw blade (1/8"). AI documents are easily resized before printing, laminating and mounting. Excess material will be used for smaller panels, labels etc.