Help with edge banding

[Darren Jamieson]

Hey all, I am building some cabnets for the basement and I am having difficulty doing the edge banding. I am trying to aply a 1/4" piece of birch on the front of all the pannels and can't seem to route the birch flush with the ply. I have a 1/2" straight bit with a bearing on top, both in good shape. As well I put an extra tall fence on my router table and am trying to only take a very small bite at a time (less then 1/16th") but the bit seems to just keep grabing and ripping chunks of the banding and chipping the malmine. At 50.00 bucks a sheet I don't want to have to keep replacing my peices and I'd rather not just keep crossing my fingers and hoping that it won't happen to the next one.
Normally I try to cut my edge band down to the right size then apply it but then if it doesn't go on perfect you get some of the end of the malmine showing and an uneven finish. My router is turned right up to the max speed and I am trying to feed real slow, what am I doing wrong????? Should I get a Three or four flute staight bit instead of the two bit that I have? and or would a smaller dia. bit (1/4") work better??

[Mel Fulks]

Feed from the other direction ,taking the whole cut at one time. Hold on tight as it will want feed itself fast. And keep your fingers way out of the bit plane. You will probably have to do some scraping and sanding too.

[Darren Jamieson]

Should I look at each peice to make sure I am cutting with the grain and feed accordingly?

[Brad Tucker]

Brand new sharp bit is helpful. Climb cutting is a good tip. It just takes practice. I've done this with my router in a router table and a tall fence works OK. Better I think to avoid it all together. Use thicker 3/4" x 1 1/2" nosing on shelves that's easlilly made flush on the top without trimming. For frameless cabinetry use the good old standard 1mm banding. It comes out cleaner than fighting the thicker banding.

Hope this helps.
Brad Tucker

[Don Jarvie]

Try a flush trim bit with the bearing on the bottom. Clamp on a board or two to the other side and use a hand held router. The bearing on the bottom will ride along the plywood and trim the banding. The clamped on wood will give the router something to rest on.

[Stephen Cherry]

Maybe something like this, with the bit set slightly below the level of the melemine. You could also use some profile, or a tight radius bit.242059

[Darren Jamieson]

Thanks for the thoughts and comments.
Stephen, I really like this idea and I think that it should work far better, thank-you for your imput.

[Jeff Duncan]

Hmmmm, I think from your description the problem may be that your climb cutting already??? If your router is in a table you should be feeding from right to left. You should also be able to remove the entire edge at one pass. My guess is your feeding from the wrong direction which in theory would leave you a cleaner cut if you could feed it slowly and accurately....not likely if your removing more than say 1/32" +/- per pass. If you have say 1/8" to remove your going to find it grabbing and ripping the heck out of your piece. Make sure your feeding the right direction and if it's still grabbing.....there's something else wrong.

good luck,
jeffD

[Prashun Patel]

The fact that you're ripping the melamine is problematic. The bearing should prevent that. Are you tipping?

It sounds to me that you need a new bit. Flush trimming 1/4" wide stock using light passes as you've described should be easier than has been yr experience. The shear and spiral bits are nice, but a new, quality straight bit should work just fine.

Also, lower yr bit so that the bearing rides just above the birch; have the bit's cutting edge exposed to only the edging.

[Richard McComas]

Before I got my lamello lipping planer I just cut the edge banding slightly over sized and flushed it up with a hand plane. Worked well.

[glenn bradley]

Sub-base for a hand held router:

242128242129242130242131

The router rides on the flat of the play and trims the edging down to that level. The example in the last shot is my trimming a piece of scrap in the vise to the level of the bench riding the router on the bench for reference.

[Darren Jamieson]

Thanks again for all the imfo here and for the different idea's. I was looking for the simplest sulution and ended up going back to my high fence and the only way that I could get it to not rip the birch to pieces was to use a very slight profile. The bit was never coming in contact with the malmine but rather when it grabbed the birch and ripped it took big chuncks of the malmine with it. (good glue, I guess) I used a large dia cove bit and only brought it up enough to very slightly round over the edge band and that stopped the chipping. As well I needed to put my router on the slowest speed and drasticly reduce my feed rate. I think that my birch was extremly dry because I have built tons of birch cabnets and the sole reason I use it is because it is not prone to tearout laike say oak. Anyway problem solved and I am back in buisiness with only one totally lost board (I'll use it some where else) and a couple of edge bands that need to be removed and redone.
Thanks again all.