Card laminator and method of card lamination

A laminator comprising:

• an infeed which supplies plastic cards which are to be laminated with a plastic laminating material on a first side of each card;
• a laminating station having a heated roller and a card support, opposed to the heated roller, which supports a second side of each plastic card and is separated from the heated roller to define a card opening through which each plastic card passes when being laminated;
• a plastic laminating material source which feeds plastic laminating material into the card opening between the heated roller and the first side of each plastic card with heat from the heated roller heating the plastic laminating material and each plastic card in the card opening to fuse the plastic laminating material to the first surface of each plastic card to produce laminated plastic cards;
• and
• a card bowing station, located at an outfeed of the laminating station, including a resilient member which moves from a withdrawn position into transverse contact with a portion of the second side of each plastic card relative to a direction of movement of each plastic card through the laminator, while each laminated plastic card retains heat from being laminated, to bow each plastic card sufficiently in the portion to cause each laminated plastic card when cooled to be substantially flat.