I have been working on a project that involves gluing two sheets of cardstock together, then laminating the result with clear contact paper. It's a bit of work, but seemed more reasonable than purchasing a $200 laminating machine.

Maybe not. I had been pleased with the results, but noticed that the rubber cement seal was coming apart in some places. No problem, I thought, I'll just slip in a little extra rubber cement. That appeared to be a fine solution, until I returned to my work an hour later and discovered that the solvent from the rubber cement had apparently penetrated the card stock and dissolved the adhesive on the contact paper, leaving a mess of wrinkles and bubbles. :(

Time to figure out Plan B.

Posted by sursumcorda on Thursday, October 14, 2004 at 7:11 am | Edit
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How old is the rubber cement you are using?

Posted by Janet on Thursday, October 14, 2004 at 10:05 am
Less than a month. I expect I might have been all right had I not tried to use the rubber cement after the lamination. The solvent evaporates fast enough that the contact paper I applied after giving the glue a chance to dry was fine. I guess I can use rubber cement as the initial adhesive, but must resort to something else for repairs.

I've also been looking at laminating machines....

Posted by SursumCorda on Thursday, October 14, 2004 at 10:22 am
Oh, dear! That's the project you're working on for me...
If you continue to notice problems, ie, after a few days, even the dried rubber cement is adversley affecting the lamination, please let me know. I was about to go out and buy both rubber cement and contact paper.
I hope you'll find lots of other uses for a laminating machine if you get one. If you get one, you might not have to do the second piece of card stock.

Posted by Joyful on Thursday, October 14, 2004 at 1:14 pm
sorry about mis-typing "adversely"

Posted by Joyful on Thursday, October 14, 2004 at 1:15 pm
I wish I could edit comments, too.

Panic is not, in general, a good thing. Patience almost always is. When attempting to redeem a disasterous situation, if you find your efforts doing harm rather than good, stop. Go away, leave the project, do something else. (Easy to do when you've seen your work disintegrate before your eyes; that rather saps one's inspiration.) Sometimes, a little time passing can make things look better. And sometimes that's literally true! After several hours, the horrible bubbles and wrinkles have started to subside (on their own—the places where I tried to interfere look worse) to the point where I believe the work is salvageable! Not as pretty as I would like, but it gives me the courage to keep going.

A laminator is still attractive, but I'm not going to wait till I decide to buy one to get on with the job!

Posted by SursumCorda on Thursday, October 14, 2004 at 1:58 pm
Go ahead and buy the rubber cement and contact paper. I've developed a method that seems to work. For items that already have contact paper on one side, I use a giant glue stick (acid free) for gluing on the other piece of card stock. If there's no contact paper involved yet, I still prefer rubber cement, because it cleans up so nicely. No matter what adhesive I use, I now pay more attention to getting the edges well-cemented (enough glue, extra pressure when sticking the pieces together), decreasing the likelihood of having to make repairs later. If I do need to repair, I use a "glue pen" (basically a small glue stick) from my scrapbooking supplies. It also helps to put contact paper on both sides, and leave a small margin so that there's a contact paper seal around the outside, too. I make sure to give the rubber cement plenty of time to dry completely before putting on the contact paper.

Posted by SursumCorda on Saturday, October 16, 2004 at 8:59 am