Glue Adhesion to Solid Wood Edgebanding
A good tip for making maple edgebanding stick: pre-treat with spray contact cement. December 2, 2006
Question
Any advice on applying 5/16" solid maple edgeband on MDF core panels? We can get the clear (no fillers) glue to stick just great to the core, but not so much on the wood. Everything new, straight and true.
Forum Responses
(Architectural Woodworking Forum)
From contributor M:
I have the same problem, and used to buy a primer to put on the bands, until my bander tech turned me on to just spraying some contact adhesive on them instead. This seems to work really well on all of the hardwoods. I don't seem to have the problem with alder and other softwoods. I did learn that you want to use a clear contact adhesive, not a colored one. I spray the bands, and let them dry, and the heat from the bander glue will reactivate the contact adhesive. Give it a try, and see if it will work for you too.
From contributor J:
I make custom type work pieces. I generally use PSA edgebanding, rough with a utility knife and finish with a custom made finely burnished scraper. I'm pretty speedy at it, though my bench carpenters seem to take a month of Sundays to edgeband anything! Is an edgebander a worthwhile investment for a small custom shop? I run through maybe 500' of edgebanding in a busy month. The only edgebander I ever used was in a production shop that I worked at for a very short while years ago. It was fast, but still required a manual cleanup. Anyone have experience with the 2-300 dollar edgebanding contraptions that Woodworkers Warehouse sells?
By the way, I'm relatively inexperienced with MDF core "plywood." I recently ran some 1.75 radius solid cherry quarter round, which will be used as cornerbead on a ceiling beam project next month. I have about a half unit of A1 MDF core cherry that I was thinking of using up for the sides of this application. The stability seems excellent, and the cost is nil, as the stock was traded to me for dollars on my pennies. Good or bad idea?
From contributor L:
A bander is probably the most labor saving tool you can own. If the bander is leaving the edge to be manually cleaned up, the operator doesn't know what he's doing. We have a medium duty bander that is reasonably fast (58'/min.) and will put on a max of 20mm thick. It takes less than 5 minutes to change form PVC to wood. Priming maple and HPL helps a lot, and so does using top quality adhesive. Dorus veneered MDF is good, but you have to be careful about fastening. Going into the edges will cause it to split if much force is put on it. If you finish nail through the face, you will develop puckers that look bad! As you've probably seen in the posts about banders, stay away from the hot air contraptions!
