Heat laminating: Just say no!

I tried using a friend's heat laminator for a deck I'd printed. Bad idea. The cards slid within the sleeve, overlapping each other so that I couldn't cut them apart. I didn't notice it had happened until after I'd run it through, so I had to cut the laminating sheet around the cards closely enough to get an edge. Then I had to peel it back off, which took half the color off the cards. Even with the cards that worked OK, I had to cut such a wide edge around them that I'm afraid they'll be hard to handle. So if you're considering heat laminating a deck, I'd recommend against it. This didn't turn out well at all.

I think that I have read several times here that cold laminating is the way to go. Your experience seems to back that up.... ouch!

Heat laminating does work, but you have to do one card at a time. Tedious.

I have had good results using a heat press that picture framers use to mount posters. I made a sandwich of fome board, release paper, lots of cards laid out in their sandwiches of laminate, another sheet of release paper, and sheet of mat board. I taped the pieces of laminate in place on the release paper, to make sure nothing shifted while I put it all in the press.

They came out nice.

Make friends with a picture framer, and see what you can do.