I tried to post this before, but my post seems to have disappeared. I apologize if this is a double post.

I need to edge band a small amount of walnut plywood on a regular basis, roughly 100 linear feet once a week. I've tried ironing on edge banding with pre applied adhesive, but the adhesive is white which makes the glue line very visible. The adhesive is also gummy which creates trimming issues.

Is there a better way to do this? A machine seems like more trouble than it's worth for the volume I am doing. Gluing the edgebanding with wood glue looks great but is labor intensive.

Im sure farming it out to a local shop would with a large bander in worthwhile lots would be a suggestion but perhaps no one in your area or you cant process larger runs and inventory.

Fast edge tape from fastcap is often mentioned but ive never been impressed with it.

You might do some calling around to varuous suplliers as i know ive seen preglued and even prefinished dark banding somewhere that called out dark glue but cant remember exactly where at the moment.

One other is you may try more heat and a hard steel roller with your current banding and a lot of roller pressure to tighten up your glue line.

have you thought about a hand held bander like a festool conturo?

Here is a second vote for a Festool bander. It is expensive for what it is but it does a good job and you can use it on curved work. If this project ever stops it is easily sold.

We have one mounted in a table for curved work.

Festool handhelds bander
5 minutes to warm up, run natural glue pucks, cut banding to length plus about 1’
Edgeband trim and put away. This is the best handheld bander out there

Ok, thanks guys.

I will look for edgebanding with dark colored adhesive, this sounds like a good solution for the moment.

I will also consider the Festool. Are there any compact floor machines that would be a good alternative? I don't need the capability to do curves and I would prefer something that is easier to work on.

Edgeco is the company I get my preglued banding from, they have great service and will make whatever you need. I bought a used Virtex EB 25 for $1800 and has been great for my low volume needs.

find someone in your area with a bander. should'nt cost that much if they would agree on you bringing in your parts and banding.

If I only needed 100' a week, I would rip 1/8" thick strips of solid walnut and glue it on. The you have a hardwood edge that is far superior to glue on edge banding. If you do that every week, I'd make up a glue up table for easy loading and clamping. Using Titebond, you only need to leave it in the clamps for 15 minutes. Don't machine it right away, but it's stuck really well in that time.

“I will also consider the Festool. Are there any compact floor machines that would be a good alternative? I don't need the capability to do curves and I would prefer something that is easier to work on.”

You can table top mount the festool. If your referring to maintenance, it’s basically maintenance free and you don’t have to work on it other than just a little clean up

Matt, thank you, I will give edgeco a call.

Daniel, I live just outside of San Francisco where prices are off the charts insane. I no longer bother getting quotes for stuff like this.

Rich, I may end up doing 1/8th inch strips. I find solid wood easier to work with anyway.

Derrek, I'm sure the festool is fine, I just prefer simple things that appear to be made of off the shelf parts. Eg I have two laser cutters, one is a $10000 epilog laser and the other is a $1000 no name chinese laser. They both have problems but the Epilog laser has proprietary ($$$) parts.

I do the same use 1/8 solid wood use a pin nailer to hold down you can't see the pins

I think iron edging doesn't stay very well on plywood .Also it look great

Depending on the length of the parts you can use a heat bar to glue on strips. Is speeds that process but it is no where near as fast as edge banding.

Nick, if you change your mind on the festool option I am over in the tri-valley if you want to come over and take a look at mine. I agree it’s not cheap but it’s been a good tool for the few years I have had it. I picked it up from festools refurbished sale a few years back.

We use the Festool Conturo at our shop, although we have a nice Brandt edgebander. We use the Conturo specifically for curved stuff.

However, the Conturo is a legitimately good piece of equipment.

There are some smaller dedicated EB machines that would probably suite you but most of them I'm aware of run preglued EB, so you're back to your issue with the glue color. I'm pretty sure you can get dark glue for the Conturo just fine.