I used to use an iron on edging of the hotmelt variety , both regular and veneers all the time in a kitchen manufacturers workshop.
The things I tended to do after years of experience was to keep replacing the position of the iron so you give the other areas of the iron a chance to maintain a high enough temperature, say about 2-3 seconds and then move to another part of the iron, moving back along the board a bit as you go.
This is due to the board sucking out all the heat from the iron.
Obviously the temperature setting of the iron has to be set correctly.
If it is too hot, the edging will tend to curl. The glue will ooze out discoloured or the edging may smoke and blister.
Start with a low temperature and go slow and eventually you can set the temperature higher the faster you get with your technique.
In addition to the above, try to very subtly change the pressure of the iron on the top and bottom of the board (using a rocking motion, but let the iron's shoe keep full contact) so that you ensure that all the glue melts and makes contact with the edges.
I used to hold the loose edging onto the board with my leg after placing it , with the roll on top of the board and worked backwards along the board with the iron in my right hand, alternating my gloved left hand to feeding the edging or holding on the area I just melted. It does take a wee bit of getting used to judging and keeping it straight.
If you have done it well enough, you should be able to shear the excess off with the edge of a medium flat file from the front end of the board and then very carefully finish with the file. This takes a bit of getting used to as well as it is very easy to go through the laminate/veneer on the board.
We only had to do this of course when our 30 foot long state of the art edge banding machine broke down, and since it was quite often I became an expert human edgebander using the above method. :wink:
Cheers,
Raymond.
