Speeding up edgebanding?

[Rich Engelhardt]

I did, but to be honest that machine comes with a stiff price tag and I’m not convinced it would be wildly faster. I’d want an in person timed demo to confirm value before purchase.

All Festool tools come with a 30 day - no questions asked - money back return.
This sounds exactly like the type of trial Festool has that policy for.

[jack duren]

Are you suggesting contact cement, or pressure sensitive tape? I can't imagine the mess of using contact cement on all the 3/4" edges.

Yes. You stack or cover what you don’t want glue on. It’s not as hard as it looks..

[Kevin Jenness]

Richard's suggestion of subbing out the banding to another shop is good, but make sure you have them run some samples before you commit. A well set up bander will need no or very little subsequent handwork.

The handheld Festool bander could be useful for curved work, but painfully slow for quantities of rectangular parts compared to a feed-through stationary bander. The Conturo just glues on the banding, then the trimming is done with a manual end clipper and a laminate trimmer, plus it appears you have to precut the bands as opposed to working off a roll. Good banders are expensive because they save a lot of labor and are built for production. You'll have to make a business judgment as to what level of investment to make in light of what kind of work you want to pursue.

[Phillip Mitchell]

Is this paint grade or clear/stain grade cabinetry? Have you considered hardwood banding? I have used plenty of iron on commercial veneer banding and, like you, have found it to be a painful, tedious and slow process doing it all manually. It makes sense in certain budget scenarios, I suppose, but not really if you aren't set up with a decent edge bander that also trims. I also don't like how thin it is and it can be hard to make the corner glue line between the banding and veneer truly disappear in certain species and wood tones, which bothers me as a picky woodworker.

I have moved to using 1/4" solid hardwood, usually matching species of veneer on the ply, and glueing it on with PVA glue and painter's tape. Then trimming flush on the shaper (or router table...) and having a much better looking and much more durable edge. If I prep and mill the 1/4" x 7/8" strips at the beginning of the project all at once and have them ready to go by the time I need to edge then it's really not any/much more time or effort than the iron on...may even be faster overall once you get into the groove of it and set up. Just a thought.

[Bryan Hall]

Richard's suggestion of subbing out the banding to another shop is good, but make sure you have them run some samples before you commit. A well set up bander will need no or very little subsequent handwork.

The handheld Festool bander could be useful for curved work, but painfully slow for quantities of rectangular parts compared to a feed-through stationary bander. The Conturo just glues on the banding, then the trimming is done with a manual end clipper and a laminate trimmer, plus it appears you have to precut the bands as opposed to working off a roll. Good banders are expensive because they save a lot of labor and are built for production. You'll have to make a business judgment as to what level of investment to make in light of what kind of work you want to pursue.

The speed of the Conturo is really what I fear about it. I'm sure it does excellent work but you are correct, every single piece of edge banding has to be individually cut and then fed into the machine. Then all of the manual cleanup after. The only time savings I can see would be had by simply getting to avoid the iron speed. Tasks like this make me think it would be nice to have an apprentice.

[Bryan Hall]

Is this paint grade or clear/stain grade cabinetry? Have you considered hardwood banding? I have used plenty of iron on commercial veneer banding and, like you, have found it to be a painful, tedious and slow process doing it all manually. It makes sense in certain budget scenarios, I suppose, but not really if you aren't set up with a decent edge bander that also trims. I also don't like how thin it is and it can be hard to make the corner glue line between the banding and veneer truly disappear in certain species and wood tones, which bothers me as a picky woodworker.

I have moved to using 1/4" solid hardwood, usually matching species of veneer on the ply, and glueing it on with PVA glue and painter's tape. Then trimming flush on the shaper (or router table...) and having a much better looking and much more durable edge. If I prep and mill the 1/4" x 7/8" strips at the beginning of the project all at once and have them ready to go by the time I need to edge then it's really not any/much more time or effort than the iron on...may even be faster overall once you get into the groove of it and set up. Just a thought.

Your method is, undoubtedly, my preferred way of edge banding. However, this is stain grade work, all with the rift sawn doug fir look. The 1/4" top and bottom band running the opposite direction just wouldn't fly.

[jack duren]

I’ve used hand held, stationary and full edge banding machines. Hand held tskes practice on curves, trust me.

I’d would not sub this out. #1.. you have to buy tape and buy the shops time. I wouldn’t do it for less than $200-$300 for an hour+ materials.

Now if your a business, it would be worth it.

I’ll admit , I’m fast at it.

Buy one of these..

Virutex ET6 ET-6 Single Side Edge Trimmer for PVC, ABS, Wood Edgebanding

Set up,a table lay all your part ps together that get edge banding. Buy painers paper, cover what fpdoesnt get sprayed and spray what does.

I bought a $15 sprayer from HF , just to do counter tops.

[Bryan Hall]

All Festool tools come with a 30 day - no questions asked - money back return.
This sounds exactly like the type of trial Festool has that policy for.

For some reason I’ve always felt weird about taking advantage of that. Maybe it’s because it’s more hassle for my local vendor.

[Jim Becker]

The speed of the Conturo is really what I fear about it. I'm sure it does excellent work but you are correct, every single piece of edge banding has to be individually cut and then fed into the machine. Then all of the manual cleanup after. The only time savings I can see would be had by simply getting to avoid the iron speed. Tasks like this make me think it would be nice to have an apprentice.

The Conturo is definitely going to take more time than a dedicated, higher end edge banding machine. Where the Conturo shines is that it is portable...take the machine to the material which is handy for edge banding large components or assemblies in one piece, can also be fixed to a bench for processing smaller panels and what some folks like is that it handles thicker banding if desired, such as 1mm thick solid banding. It's worthy of consideration along those lines, is a much lower investment than a big machine and doesn't take any space up than a Systainer when not being used. But it's certainly not a "high volume" machine for sure!

[jack duren]

Too much money for a few pieces. One set of cabinets won’t pay for it..

[Rod Sheridan]

Depending upon model, stationary edge binders can do everything from 0.5mm tape to solid wood edging in strip form with spectacular results.

Regards, Rod

[Bob Jones 5443]

I’m reading this with some trepidation. I’m planning to edge band my maple ply cabinets that will have full overlay doors and doors. I bought a roll of maple edging and a little racecar trimmer. It’s maybe 30 feet total. Am I missing something? Wish me luck.

[Rod Sheridan]

I’m reading this with some trepidation. I’m planning to edge band my maple ply cabinets that will have full overlay doors and doors. I bought a roll of maple edging and a little racecar trimmer. It’s maybe 30 feet total. Am I missing something? Wish me luck.

I use a knife because the grain direction is opposite on opposite sides…..Regards, Rod

[Bryan Hall]

I’m reading this with some trepidation. I’m planning to edge band my maple ply cabinets that will have full overlay doors and doors. I bought a roll of maple edging and a little racecar trimmer. It’s maybe 30 feet total. Am I missing something? Wish me luck.

30 feet and you'll survive. I'm pushing 500 feet on this project. Every night I lay down in bed and I ask myself "did I unplug the iron!?!?"

[Warren Lake]

I did volume stuff in contact. Stuff being done stacked floor to high and one side sprayed at once but it was all the same size. Laminate strips lay down tape across good side then flip the mass of them. Contact sprayed stuff layed on each part trimmed then opposite side done. had no failures but even so I might trust Iron on more but haven't used it enough to know.

They had a huge edge bander at one of the shops I was in but it was nothing but grief. they were improving in the years after as they had to because people would not put up with all the issues. I worked out my own ways for solid edges and past stuff banded in 1/4 solid. Not for what you are doing now thats a lot to do. You better clean the iron before you press the next shirt.