johnelliott":mwl7sbk5 said:
Not so much complete kitchens, but built-in cupboards etc which, by the time all the shelves were done, would amount to quite a bit. I was thinking probably 2mm pvc which would allow a bit of sharp edge removal/rounding over without danger of the core being exposed.
John
That's the problem. There are to my knowledge just three devices available on the market in the UK which you could describe as truly portable - the KoolKut, Hebrock and Virutex. All are hand held hot air devices which require pre-glued edging tape. Go above 1mm thick tapes to achieve a radius edge and you need to use either PVC or ABS edge banding - neither generally available pre-glued in the UK. Another problem is that PVC in particular starts to deform/scorch somewhere around the melt point of the glue (190 to 220 degrees C, depending on spec.) so a hand held unit is really only suitable for melamine pre-glueds. If you do go to hand held I'd recommend the Virutex as being the pick of the bunch - both in build quality and on cost/performance grounds, but you'll still have to deal with the problem of trimming and glue squeeze out by hand. Raukontex do a set of trimming and profiling tools available through PWS, but at around £200 they are hardly cheap.
The same problems apply to bench-top units such as the Jet and Freud - they simply cannot handle the thicker tapes, either. In fact any hot air bander can only really apply melamine tapes as, unlike PVC, it is relative heat insensitive. ABS is relatively hear insensitive, too, but the problem with that stuff is that it is also quite inflexible and so needs an edge bander with good side pressure and a power feeder unit to get it to stick - and they're hardly what you could call portable.
To get thicker edge banding on the only solutions are to go to a glue pot edgebander with a power feeder - and they are static machines which are too big and heavy to get out of the shop (not to mention the fact that they almost always require compressed air and 3-phase) or glue the stuff on using a KG glue spreader and contact adhesive. Basic glue pot static solutions start at around £7k + VAT these days, although at that price you'd get a maximum thickness of 3mm edging. They do come with end cut-off at front/rear (thicker stuff over 2mm and ABS may require an upgrade to a saw cut-off, though) as well as profiling cutters - but don't expect buffers (to remove glue squeeze-out) or polishers (to remove milling chatter marks) at that price as you won't get them. With glue pot warm-up periods being in the order of 20 to 30 minutes you really need a serious amount of work to justify buying one of these machines. To round-over the square ends you need to have a round-end profile machine - and Brandt will happily supply one for about £6k to £8k (and secondhand they are like hens teeth)
This is not a good answer if you are in the market - but be wary of buying secondhand. Edgebanders are notoriously temperamental (especially glue pot ones), complex and prone to going wrong - so make sure you find a local edge bander engineer to get you out of the mire if you hit a problem (and that advice is from someone who maintains his own CNC router and has had a half share in a Cehisa glue pot bander!). Once set-up they work best if left there - which means picking a type and thickness of tape and sticking with it RIGIDLY - every time you change the banding settings it can take an hour or more fiddling around the get the feed, glue, side pressure, trim, etc right again.
Tim
A standard double edge trimmer won't work at all well with veneer edging. I tend to use a thick plane iron or a block plane with a fine set mouth and go carefully at it. To finish off I use a piece of abrasive paper. To apply it any of the hot air machines will do the job, either the bench tops or the hand-helds.
Scrit