Shop made edgebander for under 40 bucks

[John Blazy]

This thread was going to be just a post on an iron-on edgebanding thread started by Hoang N Nguyen, but it would be buried too far in case others wanted to look this idea up for making their own edgebander.

One of my first big jobs was to make hundreds of window sills from melamine for builder, and that was motivation to make an edgebander.

You can buy them in this style, which was part of the inspiration for this, but it seemed too simple to make, and back 25 years ago when I made this, I couldn't afford one anyway.


I have run literally tens of thousands of lineal feet of edgebanding (melamine, wood, etc) through this thing, and went through two heat guns in its lifetime.

The important part is having three hands to turn on and off the heat gun when starting and stopping a run, so now that I think about it, it would have been smart to use a foot switch.

If anyone makes one, and is interested, I will post a step by step procedure to run edgebanding through it, although its pretty self-explanatory (the real trick is to run your piece past the pressure/spacer guide at the end of the run to cut the edgebanding).

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[John McClanahan]

I just love clever ideas like this!

John

[Matt Day]

I'm sure it's a clever idea but I can't grasp what's going on. A few more pictures and description would be good. Thanks!

[John Blazy]

Hey Matt, You need to come and visit my shop and see the edgebander in full operation - I'm in Parma, about 40 minutes away from you.

The way it works is kindof self evident in the pics - you simply turn on the heat gun, feed a little banding into the fence and contact the panel to the edgebanding and push against the fence with a little pressure, slow speed to make sure the banding is heated to melt point, and shut off the heat gun when you get to the end of the panel, holding against the fence to cool, then push the panel beyond the spacer / guide and cut the banding with a razor knife. Rinse and repeat.


Ive probably run about 20,000 feet of edgebanding through my edgebander, and its a lot easier than you think (once you get the hang of it).