I’m planning on selling some CDs I’m publishing over amazon.com, and they require shrinkwrapping. Unfortunately, money is a bit tight right now and I just can’t afford to buy a shrinkwrapper. Does anyone know a cheap way to do it? Would saran wrap and a hair dryer work or something?
Not sure what you consider cheap, but check this link
http://www.stevensonind.com/
shrinkwrap systems from $150
Cheap is under $20.
Shrinkwrap itself is fairly cheap. We use it all the time on our manufacturing lines here at work (publishing company). And performing the actual shrinkage is cheap because you can do it with a hair dryer (we have used hair dryer-style heat guns to shrink small items that were inconvenient to run through our big heat tunnels).
You can find CD sized shrink bags offered by a lot of manufacturers (an example here). The problem is finding a cheap machine to do the intial heat seal of the bags (or the sheets if you are using shrink film from a roll). A cheap bag sealer (there are a few listed on the above link) is still going to be over 40 bucks and an L-bar sealer (for use with rolls of film) will be much more. And that to the price of the bags ($15 or so for a box) and you’re up to 50 or 60 bucks.
I suggest you purchase a window treatment kit. Cut the material down to the size of item to be shrinked wrapped. Wrap it as tight as you can by hand. Use clear tape or glue to seal. Take a blow dryer to the item. Taadaa… shrink wrapped.
This takes a little practice, but it works and doesn’t cost much.
Hope that helps!
Get a catalog from http://bagsunlimited.com. They don’t have an online catalog, but they’re pretty cheap.
If you can find a smalltime local printing press, they are usually equipt with shrinkwrap machines. I am sure you could convince them to shrinkwrap something for a minimal fee.