Question
I just purchased a used Holz-Her 1402HF edgebander. I want to run veneer as well as solid wood strips. The machine is rated at 5mm but the manual says with different cutters will handle 8mm. I would like to hear opinions related to running solid wood strips on this or similar machines. How does the glueline look? Is it more noticeable than a hand-clamped PVA-glued glueline? Have you had or heard about failures or problems with the expansion of a 3mm or greater edge due to hot-melt glue's adhesion profile? Are router trimmers able to give a consistent no-tearout finish to solid edges between 2 and 8 mm. in thickness?
Forum Responses
(Cabinetmaking Forum)
From contributor M:
I have a Holz-Her 1310 with scrape and buff. I run on average 100 meters a month of solid wood for edging veneer and laminate doors. Mostly it is 5mm x 22mm strips of exotic hardwoods. I am located in the Philippines so we have some really nice super hard woods like kamagoong. Sometimes we run 7mm thick and it still works. I am not sure what the upper limit is. I do know that the problem is the conveyor cannot hold the work piece tight enough to allow the rollers to push/bend the edging without slipping.
Other thoughts…
Clean the trimmers often, every 10 meters or so. The sap, glue and dust seem to really build up fast on the cutters. Solid wood strips run a lot slower than coil PVC. We can run 200 meters of PVC banding before lunch, but if it is wood strips, we will do good to run 30.
There is a lot more hand work. I leave my edges proud about .2mm. We then use Dynabrade sanders to flush and prepare the edges for finishing. Most of the time we are banding wood to veneered panels. The veneer is thin and the surface variation causes over trimming, so we leave a little to sand flush.
I use Kleibert glue, the usual stuff. No failed edges even when used in kitchens.
