Hey all,

Looking to retire our vintage SCMI 1992 Basic 1 edgebander and get a new one. I have been looking at the SCM ME-20 which has a nice price point about 8.5K. Since there is not a showroom in our area that has one set up for a demo wonder how people like this machine. I want to get a machine that can put on .5mm wood and PVC tape with out having to hand trim afterwards. All our jobs are cut and banded by our wood supplier so we only use our machine when we are doing a small cutout or a grain matched slab plywood job. With our current machine it puts the tape on and we have to do a lot of hand trimming since its worn out. The last grain matched slab plywood job we spent 3 days banding and trimming when it should have been a 1 day- job. The big question here is should I get the ME-20 or step up to the ME-25 for another 5k?

Hi, A little off topic, but I replaced my ME-30 with a ME-35 , Really like having the pre-mill, but I still need to sand edges to clean up glue. Only takes a minute or so per door.

Ed,

I see the premill on some of the newer machines, but I am a little ignorant of what it actually does. Can you elaborate on what a premill does and why? Thanks!

Premill shaves of some material of your part for the thickness of the edgebanding you're putting on it before actual edgebanding, so that the dimensions of the part before and after edgebanding are the same.
That way, if your finished part needs to be, for example 12" wide, you can cut it exactly to be 12" wide and it will stay that wide after edgebanding.
If you don't have premill you have to cut it shy of 12" for the thickness of the edgebanding, so when the edgebanding is added it will come to 12" wide.
Also, if your cutting operation does not provide chip-free cut, premill can smooth the edge for you.

That being said, I don't have one, and I don't know how much effort and money goes into setup and maintenance of the premill assembly to do what it's suppose to do.

Hi, I could not have said it better than Oggie
As for the second part of his post, I have had the machine for 3 years and have not required any maintenance on the pre mill unit. As for the cost, I think my machine came without a large increase for the pre mill option. One last thing is it was offered with single phase.
There are some good videos of the machine on line.
Good luck with your choice.
Ed

Ed,

I was always wondering how long those premill knives usually last, i.e. does anybody have an idea how many linear feet of plywood or melamine edges can those shave chip-free before they have to be replaced or sharpened and how much does that cost?

I suppose that will vary greatly depending on the machine model, but any info would be useful.

Hi, Well as I mentioned earlier , I have had the machine for 3 years and probably made around 1000 fronts. Have not noticed any degradation of cut quality, The cutters are solid round with integral teeth instead of knives. SCM offers exact replacement cutter heads or an upgrade to diamond tip cutters.
When I do replace , I am planning to upgrade to the diamond tip.
Ed

Ed,

that is good to know. I always thought (not sure why) the life duration of those cutters must be in the range of other cutting things, like, for example, table saw blades.

Ed,
If you run regular thickness tape and then switch to 1mm does the pre mill automatically compensate or do you have to make adjustments for each thickness?
On my basic1 there is an adjustment knob that you adjust when using different thickness. Would be nice if using one knob for both operations.

Hi, The pre-mill is set at 2mm to the infeed fence. When changing tape thickness they provided long shims that are held to fence by magnets. 0mm, 1.5mm, 1mm , and .5mm
If you want to use 3mm tape , you can choose how much to remove and then do the math on finish size. Also adjustments to pressure rollers and cutters have to be made when changing thickness. Changing over is quick. If any you happen to be in central Texas , I would be happy to show the machine to you.
Ed

Our work is mostly on high gloss, supermatt and textured European panel material and we could not live without the premill cutters on our brandt. Even with scoring sliders , the premill creates a razor sharp edge for an almost invisible glue line. Can’t afford a true hot air or laser machine. The premill advantage of removing the thickness of the banding do that you don’t need to do any difficult calculations for finished door size is a great asset, ourscane with diamond teeth, but it’s also a 50k Bander. We need it as most of our door cores are mdf or particleboard. I imagine a plywood core would wear the teeth faster. Some premill heads have replacement blades , which could be changed out quickly but ours is one piece and would have to be sent out for sharpening . An extra set of cutters is a few grand , but we have had the Bander fir just over a year and it’s still cutting like new.

Does anyone have any experience with the MAKSIWA brand? My machinery guy told me about there new edgebander that looks a lot like the SCM ME25 but for around $9500. It has a few more bells and whistles.

Video