Pro Tips for Fast and Efficient Edgebanding

hey thanks for checking out next level carpentry as you can see I'm back from vacation and up to my head in a cabinet project I'm doing a complete set of cabinets and shelves for a master closet project and I've got them scattered around the shop here these are various freestanding and hanging units with shelves for shoes purses there will be some drawers later they also have hanging spaces for various lengths and types of garments all the cabinets are in various stages of assembly and I'm completing each process as I go through the main cutout then I've got all the data wing and rabbiting and drilling shelf clip holes etc but now it's time to do all these short shelves and then there's some cleats that get the edge banding as well and I thought I'd go through the steps that I use when I started off this roll was 250 feet do a little math and that's almost one twentieth of a mile of edge banding so the process I use has to be fast and efficient to make it worthwhile doing on all this doing on all these separate parts a full-fledged cabinet shop has a Holzer edge banding machine and they just run the shelves through as fast as they can feed them in there I don't do enough of this stuff to justify that machine and the process with these simple tools to me is a better value than getting even a portable edge banding station and I'll show you why I don't have any experience with those somebody may have one and love it and recommend it but I've always done it this way as you'll see I think as I think you'll see this is pretty fast and efficient but the key to it all is the fact that the edges are durable and reliable I've seen stuff come out of a an edge banding machine and if the tolerances in that machine are off a few thousandths of an inch the edge banding sticks over the edge the first time you slide a pair of shoes off a shelf twink it it pulls the edge banding off so the tools I use and the process I use illuminate that I don't get callbacks for loose edge banding and I want to show you how how I go about that you can make your own decision and decide what tools you're going to use but for a fast reliable edge the system is tough to beat and it's times like this when I've got a big cabinet project going on in the shop that I really wish I had a film crew there's so much cool stuff going on from sizing big sheets full 47 or 48 and a half by 96 and a half inch sheets sizing them down into precisely identical parts like this just with regular shop equipment I've got the dado blade process shelf pin drilling the planning and stuff there's all those steps but I just physically can't do the work and film the video at the same time but I think this edge banding thing is important enough and common enough that it's worth stopping to show you the process so let's get started with these pro tips for fast and efficient edge banding I'll start by reviewing the tools and supplies here the first and most important thing is the edge banding itself and I did a video previously I'll put a link to it up here that shows how to make custom edge banding I was doing a project with alder and I didn't want to buy a 250-foot roll of alder for just a few shelves so I show how to make and apply custom edge of banding in that video but for this because everything is red oak red oak edge banding is readily available and a great value that's what I'm starting off with this red oak edge banding is a vertical grain not a rotary cut so it's got a fine grain structure on the back it has a thick layer of hot melt adhesive on the back that's heated up with an iron sticks like crazy and you might wonder where do they get a tree tall enough to make a 250-foot strip of edge banding in one continuous piece well the secret is that they don't this stuff is very cleverly finger jointed in fact there's a joint right here between my fingers I'll zoom in and maybe you can see it but on vertical grain wood with that finger joining it's virtually invisible and if I bend it there's no way it's going to crack because of the joint so they probably use a flitch of four or five six feet long finger joint it together and give me a continuous strip 250 feet long edge banding comes in various widths this is about 7/8 of an inch which gives me a comfortable overhang on this 3/4 inch stock if I'm doing 1/2 inch material basically all's I can buy as the 7/8 width so I end up trimming off a lot more but they also have this edge banding in a 2 inch width for other projects but 7/8 inch works great for this 3/4 inch material because of the sheer volume for this project I made this little tape dispenser reel here like I said this just unscrews I can put a full 250 foot roll on here and then when I pull this off it's coming off clean and straight it lays on the shelf edge with those 8 foot long cabinet sides that's really important if you lay this stuff down on a bench and uncoil it it always comes off twisted so a tape dispenser reel like this one's real handy I made this just so it clamps down for so I can position it for the work at hand here's a close-up shot of the tape dispenser real case anybody's interested in making one I didn't sand or varnish this yet I just might I like the design basically around donut in the middle is just a little bit smaller than the inside of my roll of oak edge banding there's a relief in this piece right here so that the edge banding can spin around but not come off the reel and then a block glued and screwed to the bottom allows me to clamp this in other positions not fancy but extremely effective so for the list of tools and supplies obviously it starts off with that edge banding and the next most important feature is an iron this is a little travel model that I've had for I don't know how long things kind of beat up but it's got good instant concentrated heat the steam Jets aren't too big they don't get in the way of things it's got a setting for temperature and it's got a lot of lot of heat to hot to the touch I'll mention it again but I generally set this like on wool to cotton to get the right amount of heat into the tape after the iron next tool is a j-roller this one's there's not a lot to this but the wheel is a little bit cushioned that has some forgiveness when rolling over the surface I don't want a roller that's too hard or too soft but I can get two hands on this and get a lot of pressure to compress the hot melt glue as it cools and for a nice permanent stick of the tape to the edge of the Shelf the next tool is a pair of flush cut nippers these are unlike electricians side cutters because that the edges are sharpened into a flat face there's not like a double bevel that pinches the wire and what this allows is a flush cut to the end of a surface so one snip trims that edge banding quickly and nicely next tool is a trimming blade this trims the excess adds banding off the edge of the shelf and there's a lot of these on the market most of them try to get fancy and have a double clamp system where it trims both edges at the same time but I find with those cutters the blade is thin and flexible and if you don't have the touch just so it digs into the wood and no amount of digging is worth the little extra speed that you can potentially achieve by trimming both sides at once I've had this for four years I just reach our pin the blade the other day when I started this project it's inexpensive reliable does a great job of flush trimming so that's the only one I use and recommend the next tool I use it's probably unique to me this is a laminate file I've had this one for 20 years can you believe it and I use that instead of sandpaper after the edges are trimmed with a blade a lot of people use a piece of sandpaper I don't like that because if there's an irregularity in the edge of the edge banding the sandpaper just follows that irregularity and you got to do more work and you can over sand some areas and still not adequately sand all areas so I use a file you'll see I'll demonstrate that in a little bit but I like it because it actually cuts off any excess edge banding trims it and I can also set an angle which you'll see later this laminate file I'm trying to source these I haven't been able to find these for 20 years this file is triangular you can see that this edge can actually be used like a saw for cutting in the corners and this edge has no teeth at all so I can file up into a corner and not over file in the wrong direction I guess I'll mention it here the file can plug up with glue like you see here so another tool that I keep it on hand is a card file or a file card sorry and I use that for cleaning out any built-up hot melt glue that gets into the file but those two tools probably account for 30% of the speed of this method versus sandpaper the other thing that I do with the file periodically I'll spray it with 100% silicone this stuff is really got a lot of silicone in it it's not just propellant it's silicone so I give that file a good spritz at the end of the day or at the beginning of a project and that helps release that glue a lot quicker and easier to more incidental tools keep a sharp putty knife on hand you'll see me use that later for cleaning up any residual glue that I might have missed and last but not least is one of my best blocks for demanding sanding this is 120 grit and I use that for rounding some edges and corners etc so all the tools that I have so far I use these on either the plastic melamine edge banding or the wood at this point I add one more tool and that is big cushy sanding block this can be used right at the end for giving the edge banding itself just a little bit of texture so stain will take to it but obviously we wouldn't want to use that on the melamine edge banding because it would just scratch it and one of the distinguishing factors is that I do not use this block for the initial cleanup of the edge banding edges it's not the right type of tool for cutting them clean and smooth well that should cover the tools and an overview of the edge banding process so I'm going to go ahead and do a couple of these shelves I'll move my little edge banding dispenser over here nothing magic about that the first thing in the process that I'll mention is that to get good results like you have to have good cuts if you if your blade has wain in it or your rip fence isn't lined up and you get saw marks in the wood they'll just Telegraph through the edge banding tape if they're any more than 1/32 of an inch they'll show through the edge banding so step one in quick professional edge banding is smooth edges I like to work in a vertical orientation rather than clamping something down and doing it on the side I've got this handy vise here that takes care of that here's a close-up shot of a crisp clean square smooth edge that's ready for edge banding and I'll mention right now that all these initial steps are the same whether using melamine edge banding on a particle board or the wood edge banding there's one step at the end that's different between the two the first step I always do after clamping the board is to wipe the edge just to make sure there aren't any loose splinters of wood or sawdust on there generally wood or particle board will have a nap to it depending on the way that it was run through the table saw be kind of like fish scales you brush one way in it's smooth and the other way you can kind of feel it's rough but I just wiped that off make sure there's no chips or splinters on there naturally the next step is to grab a piece of heads banding the right length I don't bother cutting this I make it about half three Curren long and just snap it off to get a piece of edge banding that's wider and longer than the edge being covered this arrangement with the vise and the dispenser works great the longer the piece the simpler and quicker that makes the process the next step is to use a hot iron to activate the glue soften it melt it whatever you call it so I just position this on here with a little hanging over each side and a little hanging over each end the iron is set to wool / cotton that iron is way too hot to touch but I want to get a lot of heat into that edge banding in a hurry I'm just giving it medium pressure and when when the edge banding is too hot to leave my hand on it I know I've got enough heat in it I use firm pressure on the flat surface and then I'll rock the iron on each edge like this to seal the glue down at the edge and then give it a quick little rock on each end this tape is really quite hot I take the J roller give it firm pressure on the flat and then a little roll on each edge just to seal those edges down because I don't want them to flake off later by the time I'm done rolling the glue is cooled enough so that's stuck on here so I can take the flush trim nippers I hold the flat back side of the cutters up against the end of the shelf give it a nice clean snip and I try to hang on to the piece as I cut it off naturally I do both ends and these snips are nice and sharp I've had these for a number of years they're still cutting like new if you happen to misalign that and get a crooked cut this thing will snip just about nothing off of there I don't know how much that was if you can see that but they really do trim flush so even if you don't get it lined up the first time you get a second chance and I like to keep a garbage can handy and throw the offcuts in there as I go just keep things a little neater around the shop by zooming in you can see the end is cut flush now and the sides edges are hanging over a little bit that's just how I want it so that I can trim that off with this little tree trimmer and I've got links to all these tools the best I can find in the video description through Amazon where they're the same low online price to you but Amazon pays a small ad fee to help support videos at this channel so if you need any of them can't find them locally pick them up there through a link and I thank you for the support but with this little tool trimming this edge off is as quick as that I do both sides and if I have any doubt that I missed something I can always go backwards because this cuts this cuts going both directions but that gets to edge cleaning to what I'd say is 98% but you can still feel the difference between the face of the wood and the edge banding you might be able to see it here this edge is just ever so slightly sticking out and a commercial machine if it's not set right it'll leave that little edge and that's what gets caught and tends to chip off so I want to deal with it and the way I deal with it is that laminate file that I talked about I'm holding it at about a 15 degree angle to this face and I'm giving a consistent downward stroke and once and you can hear the difference when it's done cutting the edge banding it it's a smoother cleaner sound I don't even know how to describe that but when you're doing this you'll be able to tell the difference so I've cleaned off any edge banding that's protruding there's a slight angle on it but there's still a sharp corner here so I tilt the file filed to about a 45 degree angle and give it a little wipe now I've got a flush edge that's not sharp in those few strokes the backside is a little harder to do because it's hard to hold the file like this and get a good cut so I just start off with a file tilted in that 15 degrees you might be able to hear the difference as that slight edge is cut off and when you're doing this you can tell is distinct difference of how the file slides across that veneer when there's no edge banding sticking out so I've got a couple strokes to put the fifteen degree angle and one more to put a 45 on it now these edges are completely flush nothing there to snag when things are drugged on and off the shelves I'll take a final pass to make sure there isn't a burr on this edge I just hold the file tight to the end and push that trims off anything and then a very light nip eases that edge so when the shelves are being put in and out there's nothing on the end to catch and pull off second verse same as the first flush trim beveled bevel bevel done and I've got to say it's a little bit frustrating to get comments sometimes about how long something takes when the viewer doesn't account for the fact that I'm explaining things so this is how long this process takes when I'm not walking through it step by step clamp the board wipe the edge snap the tape iron it on until it's too hot to touch hit the edges hit the ends roll it out that helps seal the edges down and a couple quick snips on the ends takes care of that I got the tape a little offset there that time you can see there's a little more trim off on the back than the front and that's all it takes after completing those steps if I have any doubt that there's still hot nail glue on the surface I take a sharpen putty knife and just give a quick wipe I don't have to do that very often but it'll it'll catch if you miss anything on that ad you'll feel the knife slow down and you know you need a little more attention but once you're practiced at it and done in a while 1 2 3 it's it's a quick deal as I said earlier everything from the beginning to this step is the same for doing melamine edging on particle board with melamine on it and wood the last thing I do here is to take this squishy soft 120 grit sanding block I'll link to this too it's a great sander but the iron can tend to burnish the surface of the wood here so I just take a couple licks so that that surface is roughened up a little bit for when I stain it so that the stain takes evenly on all the surfaces when I was going through that sequence I forgot to mention I wanted to highlight the difference between a file for cleaning up the edges and sandpaper a lot of people use sandpaper after the trimming step but that Ed's can be irregular especially on a splintery wood like oak and by taking sandpaper it tends to follow the wood and not cut that off sometimes it over sands and gets into the veneer which I don't like other time it's kind of smears the glue around so I don't like sandpaper for the for the cleanup after the trimmer use a file it makes a lot of difference and it's a lot faster I wanted to show a couple more things here one is for a piece like this this is a shelf cleat the closet rot goes about here and I want to put the edge banding on the end and the bottom of this piece it's got really crisp corners from the way I made the parts and I want to ease those up a little bit so I clamped this firmly and I'll zoom in to show how I use this 120 grit sanding belt on this block if you want to know how to build sanding blocks like this that firmly hold a belt sander belt there's a link to the video that I did showing you how to make these but here's a perfect application for this I just hold it flat on the surface and roll that sharp corner if I was to use a soft squishy sanding block like this it would kind of round off the edges and not get make for a good fit you can do the same to this just a quick wipe breaks the sharpness of those corners the adds banding process is similar got a little hanging off the end a little hanging off the sides plenty of heat a little bit of pressure if the wood is cold or the iron is cold the the tape keeps peeling up if the tape gets misaligned just make sure it's good and hot and peel it up and recenter it it's hot as long as that glue is pretty pliable it you can peel it off and stick it back on you use the pressure and heat from the iron to roll that corner and this tape doesn't really want to stick on those curves so well but because I broke the edge on that a little bit you can use plenty of pressure plenty of heat just double check that to make sure I got it hot enough that I can't keep my hand on there and that means that glue is soft enough to really melt down into the fibers of the wood that I'm edge banding trim these guys off it's a little hard to line that up with the camera and this might be another example of why the single edge trimmer is better than the doubles you might need this anyways I'm going to trim this edge off and I have to be careful going around these corners [Applause] it's kind of a sharp corner for this tool to get around but it does a good job could also circles my scrap on the floor if that process loosens the glue I just hit it again with the iron a little more pressure to kind of put it back where I want it can hit it again with the roller if you need to just to make sure it's really stuck down there and then I'll carefully file this - I'm always filing onto the wood if I file the other way it can flick that edge loose this is hard to do trying to show it in the camera at the same time but you get the idea a little 15 degree bevel 45 to take the sharpness off of it rounding those corners a little bit and I didn't do very good on these ends but I can take them down with the file in with a couple licks and that shows you how a block like this is handy for the sort of work I might as well say that the reason I don't use this sandpaper even though it's stiff and hard the reason I don't like to use it for cleaning up the edges is because it tends to really clog up with glue and it's harder to clean the sanding belt than the file as I mentioned I keep this file card on hand I always want to call it a card file but that'll clean out the pores of the file quite nicely when that glue builds up like that this even has a little pointed pic on there if some of that stuff really gets jammed in the file this is good for cleaning any file but these in particular like I said I'll link to these tools in the video if it's something you need and I'm still trying to source this file I've put out a couple questions on Amazon but nobody can tell me if their file has this triangular profile or if it's rectangular but I'll find it while I'm on the subject of file maintenance I'll just show this silicon spray it's a hundred percent silicon spray I just dust the file with it being careful not to get any of the silicon on my projects and if I do this at the end of the day rather than the beginning the carrier is all evaporated out the file is slick in that glue won't build up near as much while I'm doing a bunch of this work even if the glue is still a little warm and soft from ironing it on well as you can see I've got my work cut out for me here finishing up these shelves and those cleats I'm sure I'm going to be through that one twentieth of a mile roll of edge banding by the time I get done with this project so if you liked the video I hope you'll consider subscribing the next level carpentry if you haven't already so that you'll know when videos with more tips like this come up and while you're at it poke that thumbs up button so YouTube knows something's going on these are exciting times for next carpentry I'm kind of on a countdown or account up to a hundred thousand subscribers which I'm really excited about and I want to thank all you viewers and subscribers who've been with the channel for a week or four years for being a part of the growth of the channel without you guys this doesn't happen so I really appreciate it if you're interested in any swag I'm sporting my new next level carpentry large logo t-shirt with master carpenter qualified by experienced logo on the back you can get those in the link below the video or go to teespring where you can get the t-shirt or a few great stickers like this one I keep on some of the power machines in the shop there's some other swag there on the on the teespring site if you're interested in any of that I want to mention that it seems like the t-shirts run a little small this is an extra large I'm not a big guy 510 normally I wear a large this is extra large it fits great it's a nice light quality fabric for working in the summer keeps me cool and so if you're interested in that check out the swag those sales help support the channel as well and I appreciate it I wanna give a special thanks to the patrons on patreon you guys have gone above and beyond to help encourage me to build the channel and keep things moving along here I'm looking forward to the time where I can devote all my time to next level carpentry and not focus so much on the the paying jobs that's my dream and you're helping make it possible so thank you so I'm going to keep after this till I get it done and tell you until next time thanks for watching [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] that's all folks [Music]

Channel: Next Level Carpentry

Views: 246,262

Keywords: edging, edgebanding, edgeing, banding, tape, veneer, hot melt glue, adhesive, iron on, iron-on, iron, trim, fake, solid wood, melamine, roller, trimmer, file, sand, stain, next level carpentry, fine woodworking, cabinet, shelf, edge, cut, hide, roll, melt

Id: aPiCUJr4JxY

Length: 31min 20sec (1880 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 14 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Dooh22]

Given my current interest in the subject, that was quite the pleasant watch.

Thanks for the link.

[u/Siphater]

Ironically, PLFL didn't know what he was going to do to "protect" the raw edges of exposed plywood in his drawers. He made no mention of edge banding...lol

[u/FreshlyBrewedDreams]

Well, any semi-professional to professional, skilled tradesman, with intelligence and integrity, and joy in their heart for their craft, will present themselves as such.

Jesse Stafford and Alyssa Craft are only interested in money. Nothing they do brings joy to their supposed audience.

[u/Bad--Sauce]

Yea....I don't see the Piffle Hobbit having the ability.