How best to trim edgebanding material

I occasionaly use heat senitive edgebanding and have never trimmed it so that I felt it was done well or right. I&#;ve tried knives and I&#;ve tried the squeeze type cutters with poor, inconsistent results. I bought a edger unit from Lee Valley that never worked at all, fortunately it cost very little. I see that Woodworker&#;s Supply has nice looking and expensive trimmer and am tempted to try it. What do other woodworkers use that give professional loking results?

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If you have a few minutes, wander over to the Stiles Machinery website (stilesmachinery.com) and do a quick search for edge banding. Then scroll down past the machines to find a short essay on &#;Selecting the right machine.&#; The distributor suggests basing any decisions about buying or leasing an edge bander on three variables: feed speed, edge capacity, and the number of hours per day it will run. Stiles should know, because on any given day the company&#;s online catalog includes about 20 models. Most are from Homag, but there are a few other manufacturers represented, too.

Beyond those parameters, a shop owner also needs to make a few notes about specific needs to discuss with the salesperson. Those would include the substrate materials that will be banded (MDF, plywood, strawboard, etc.), and the banding&#;s nature. That can be anything from PVC to ABS, polypropylene, PMMA, solid wood veneer, melamine, or even thin metals. If there are sharp curves involved, that should be mentioned, too. Stiles offers edge banders that range from simple gluing machines to machines that sand, shape, cut, and apply an assortment of edge treatments using a variety of application methods, and some machines that are specifically designed for contour forming.

Altendorf&#;s F2 comes with trimming, aggregate and milling units.

Courtesy of Altendorf Group

The Altendorf Group (altendorfgroup.com) is currently highlighting six new or updated models in its line of Hebrock Next machines. There are two series available, the F for small- and medium-sized shops, and the K for volume production work. The entry-level F2 comes with a 15&#; touchscreen, an optional surface scraper, and a fast-heating pot that takes just 3-1/2 minutes to get ready to roll. The F4 offers completely finished edges on a 12&#; machine. And the F5 has an integrated buffer, a pre-milling aggregate, top/bottom trimming, a radius profile scraper, a corner rounding unit, and a surface scraper.

All of these &#;extras&#; demonstrate that choosing an edge bander is no longer just about speed and glue type. The idea now is to get as many machines as the shop can afford that will eliminate manual touch-ups, trimming, edge-breaking, and even pre-milling on other machines. Saving time means fewer employees are needed, and that is a big issue when they are so hard to find.

Look to the following as a signpost suggesting routes toward further research. It is impossible to cover the mass of options available or go into much detail on individual machines. The best that can be done in this small space is to point at possibilities and offer ways to explore.

Laguna Tools has three models in the Bandit line of banders.

Courtesy of Laguna Tools

For small- to medium-sized shops, Laguna Tools (lagunatools.com) has three Bandit banders available. The 3/2 is quite compact, runs 2 mm tape, has an end trimmer and buffer, and can handle PVC, wood tape, laminate, and wood strips. The larger Bandit 4 is for cabinet shops that are doing thin edge banding from 0.4-3 mm thicknesses, and it has both top/bottom and front/rear edge scraping and buffing. And the flagship Bandit 5 has pre-milling, corner-rounding, top and bottom trim, buffing and scraping.

Felder USA (felder-group.com) offers the ForKa 200 ECO plus. This is a manual machine for both straight and curved workpieces that have concave and convex edge designs. A minimum inner radius of just 25 mm (1&#;) is possible, and it will handle edge thickness from 0.4 to 3 mm. This entry-level machine can work with ABS, PVC, and wood banding. It has a quick warm-up time, and the variable temperature control (120 to 200 degrees C) extends the lifetime of the glue. An included mounting plate means a shop can use the ForKa 200 as a stationary machine.

Options from Felder USA include the new Tempora F600 and ForKa 200 ECO Plus.

Courtesy of Felder USA

Felder has also added the Tempora F600 to its Format4 lineup, featuring GlueBox technology for PUR edge banding without the glue pot. &#;Instead of the PUR adhesive in the glue pot of edge banding machines, a thin PUR adhesive strip in the GlueBox is fused almost invisibly between the edge material and the workpiece. Taking all costs into account (investment, adhesive material consumption and cleaning costs/expenditure), in the effective field of application the GlueBox saves approximately 70 percent in comparison to conventional PUR granulate processing,&#; according to Felder.

Biesse America (biesse.com) carries a full range of 10 edge banding families that will meet the needs of almost any woodshop. They range from the small, automatic, single-sided Akron to Stream C machines that enable squaring and edge banding on both the transverse and longitudinal sides of a panel.

Biesse America carries a full range of 10 edge banding families that range from the small, automatic, single-sided Akron to Stream C.

For more information, please visit Lituo.

Courtesy of Biesse America

Three machines from Castaly-Lobo (castaly-cncmachine.com) are disarmingly named as the Basic, Medium, and Advanced auto edge banders. The Basic has buffing, fine trimming, end trimming and gluing. The Medium adds scraping, and the Advanced adds rough trimming.

The selection of banders from Casadei-Busellato (casadeibusellato.com) runs the gamut from the manual ALA 10 with a foot switch through nine models to the Flexa 507 and 607. The 507 is a high-speed machine that has the option of adding a controlled axis in its XE version, and the 607 has a processing speed of up to 22 meters (72 feet) per minute. The importer is Michigan-based JKL Machinery (jklmachinery.us).

Castaly-Lobo Machinery named these models the Basic, Medium and Advanced, based on size and features.

Courtesy of Castaly-Lobo Machinery

With more than two dozen edge banders available, SCM Group (scmgroup.com) says that thanks to its Stefani and Olimpic models the company can now cover all edge banding needs in the machining of straight and profiled panels for small to large companies. Even the smallest unit, the e20, comes with a 4.3&#; touchscreen control, a powered pressure roller, and an anti-scratch phenolic worktable. Other brand names from SCM are Evo and Me.

There are three Bi-Matic edge banders from Martin Woodworking Machines (martin-usa.com) that come in a half dozen configurations. The Prima 3.2.C can edge material up to 3 mm. Flexible, compact and affordable, it has a heat up time of 3-1/2 minutes and a trim saw, top and bottom milling station, and glue scraper. The largest model, the Prima 7.3-r.a., is a hot melt and hot air machine with a 12&#; touchscreen, pre-milling unit, double trim saw, servo-controlled top and bottom milling stations, pneumatic end rounding unit, servo-controlled profile scraper, glue scraper, and buffing unit.

Two small American-made edge banders, the 60HA and the 72GP, are manufactured by Safety Speed Mfg. (safetyspeed.com) and available in hot air or glue pot variations. The 60HA has electronic variable speed control, electromagnetic end cutters, and an Accutrim edge trim system. The 72GP prevents glue from overheating or splattering thanks to a temperature-controlled glue pot. Two industrial routers and knives provide trimming and minimize the need to sand or file edges. This machine applies banding on rolls up to 1 mm thick, and thicker single strip banding.

The top of the line Flexa607 from Casadei-Busellato can process panel edges at 72 feet per minute. 

Courtesy of Casadei-Busellato

Holz-Her (holzherusa.com) notes that &#;the heart of any edge banding machine is the glue application system.&#; The company has just introduced the new LTronic laser edging unit and also offers solutions such as the GluJet application system for mass production use of PUR glue for water resistant applications. Both come with the note that &#;optically invisible zero joints are a matter of course for Holz-Her customers.&#; The menu ranges from the small Artea series through the Streamer, Auriga, Sprint, Accura and Lumina models.

Atlantic Machinery (atlanticmach.com) carries both Fravol and Vitap edge banders. The Fravol VS and A16 Series are semi-automatic edge banders for straight, round, and curved panels for veneer, melamine, and 3 mm PVC/ABS. All have the new patented working table, which allows easier panel sliding and edging without the use of jigs. The Vitap Smart is a contour edge banding machine able to process panels with different sizes, which can apply straight or shaped (concave or convex) edges.

With more than two dozen edge banders available, SCM&#;s offerings range from the Stefani sb to the entry-level e20.

Courtesy of SCM Group

Cantek America&#;s catalog (cantekamerica.com) includes models ranging from the MX550AU portable to the brand new MX370PW, which is equipped with a strip feed magazine for automatic feeding of strips including wood and laminate.

Six machines from Maksiwa (maksiwa.com) include a popular portable, the CBC Flex, and several bench models. Among those is the CBC.T, which has a feed rate of 16 feet per minute, and ratings for PVC, PP, ABS, wood veneer and laminate.

The three machines from Pro Edge Technology (proedgetechnology.com) all have pre-milling, strip feeding, end trimming, and buffing capabilities. The middle unit, the PET III, adds an extra Super Finish station and the top-of-the-line machine, the PET IV, has dual-motor corner rounding.

Martin Woodworking&#;s has three Bi-Matic edge banders that come in a half dozen configurations including the Prima 3.2.C and 7.3-r.a.

Courtesy of Martin Woodworking

On the day we checked (in late June), Hermance Machine Co. (hermance.com) had 39 new and two used edge banders for sale, while RT Machine Co. (rtmachine.com) had 16 new and used machines available.

And for woodshops that do a lot of shaped custom work, such as store fixtures and indoor signage, SNX Technologies (snxtechnologies.com) has just added nVision G1 & G2 contour banders, which feature a quick-change glue pot system, enhancements to the PC controller including on-the-fly selection of units of measure, and modifications to the shrouds on the chip extraction system to provide much higher efficiency in removing banding trim waste. 

This article was originally published in the August issue.

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