Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Sealing Inner Sleeves


I noticed that a few people were using a $25 Impulse Sealer to seal their card sleeves.

Sealing card sleeves is cool, but I think there are issues with judges not allowing them in tournaments since the top seals could appear marked.

If you seal your inner sleeves this is not a problem, since an outer sleeve will obscure the seal.

I tried sealing KMC perfect fits and it works great! (Sealing does not work with Ultra-Pro inner sleeves)

Perfect seal. Nothing is gonna damage that Gerrard’s Wisdom now!



So why bother sealing inner sleeves?

Well, it provides more protection than conventional double sleeving since it’s a complete seal, but what I really like about it is that I can just play with KMC perfect fits by themselves in a causal environment.

I suspect that they are actually less likely to tear or split than normal un-sealed single sleeves since the card itself supports the plastic corners. I’ve been doing this for months and haven’t had a single split.

Of course they keep out more dirt and moisture than an un-sealed single sleeve. 

They are obviously much cheaper than normal single sleeves. 

For casual play I really like the thinner plastic. When I play causally with friends I want the closest experience possible to playing with just bare cards. I like that I can see the card backs and not some ugly uniform plastic color. I like that the cards feel like cards and not thick plastic.

The thickness of your decks is of course massively reduced. A 75 card deck can easily fit in my pocket when using only sealed KMC Perfect Fit sleeves.

To make a seal I recommend you take off the little cloth thing. Put the card in a small book to push out all the air and hold it flat. Then hold the sleeve at a 90 degree angle to the sealer. Turn the sealer to the lowest possible setting and push down.



No need to worry about the sealer damaging the cards either. It is not heat operated, but rather works by sending an electrical impulse through the plastic. If you accidentally hit the card it won’t heat the card since the card will break the circuit. I’ve sealed a lot of my expensive beta cards this way. They are perfectly fine. 

Just to reiterate, the impulse sealer will not work with ultra-pro inner sleeves. For some reason Ultra-Pro plastic just disintegrates instead of sealing. 

Also, there will be little air pockets at first, but after a few days the extra air will defuse through the plastic and they will be nice and flat. 



6 comments:

  1. how do you use a heat sealer without heat?? is it a special unit or modification??

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    Replies
    1. There is heat, as a side effect of electricity.

      If there is paper cutting the circuit, it doesn't heat up.

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  2. Can you try to do this with Dragon Shield Perfect Fits Smoke? I really want to try this out, since I too, love how cards feel inside perfect fits. I want to use the smokeys because they help hide the imperfections on the not-so-mint card backs. Since I don't have access to one of these Impulse Sealers, I would apreciate it if you could do the testing for me.

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  3. I actually stopped doing it because I never considered that the perfect fits wear really fast. The corners are very thin and get bent easily and after a moth or so they dont feel very good. Now a days I just impulse seal regular sleeves, but I've see dragon shield perfect fits. Maybe they are more durable??

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  4. The Dragon Shields are not going to be more durable in regards to corners bending. In fact, I think they are thinner, and serve only for water protecting inside an outter sleeve. There are, however, the KMC perfect fit HARD which are thicker than some outter sleeves. Can you get your hands on some of those?

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    Replies
    1. hmm interesting. I just ordered some HARDs I'll let you know how it goes

      Delete