Edgebander Recommendations

[Anthony Spotorno]

I find myself needing an edgebander for a variety of projects and have been doing research on several products.

Festool Conturo
Virutex 250
Felder's Forka

All of these range in the 2500 mark, 4-5k with table. They are portable if I need to take it to the job site, and can be table equipped to use at the shop in more of a production environment.

The portability is not that much of a requirement, but a nice feature, the table option is important.

Seen lots of video's on the units, it looks like Felder's model is a re-branded Virutex unit... Currently, I'm leaning to the Virutex PEB250-TRM which includes table and trimmer in one package.

I've got a 5k budget to spend, and wanted to hear other recommendations on units and if you have used any of the above or have alternate suggestions.

Thanks.

[John P Clark]

I faced the same problem last year and went with the festool conturo and have been real pleased with the results. I have used it in the shop and on job sites and it works well. I also bought the table, the acc kit and the small festool router and they have worked great.

I have mostly used wood veneer and have not used thicker edge banding material

[Jamie Buxton]

I looked pretty carefully at the Conturo, and didn't buy. I want an edgebander to apply banding at least as well as my current scheme, which is 1/8" wood banding applied with Titebond and pipe clamps. It is a lengthy process, but you can't see the glue line. The Conturo uses hot-melt glue, and neither I or the Festool rep could get the glue line as thin as I want. I don't think it was cockpit error, because Festool sells a whole range of colored glues. They expect the glue line to be visible. That's not good enough for me.

[Jeff Duncan]

I haven't used any of those though did take a hard look at the Festool recently. I would ask if your buying it to use for a business? Or is it just a handy tool for odd jobs? If it's for a business I don't think any of those are gonna do what you really want. A real bander is a better option for business use IMHO. These are just not up to the task of banding say a kitchen a month let alone any volume. If you have the space and power then a used bander may be an option that would fit your budget? I bought one for $2k several years ago and it paid for itself on the first job. They are finicky beasts and I've had the tech in to work on mine a couple times of year to keep it going, though it's pretty close to the end of it's useful like now unfortunately. But I can still tape a kitchens worth of panels in a couple hours. Plus I can do pvc banding which is really, really, handy. And if I really talk nicely and catch her on a good day, she'll even do 1/8" solid wood banding.

May be more than you need, but figured I'd throw it out there not knowing what your end use is going to be;)

good luck,
JeffD