Recently ordered a hot air bander. Won't be installed until probably February.

Curious what the negatives others have experienced with these.

Karl, they work fine as long as you buy good preglued banding. There is a wide variety of quality in preglued banding. Both in the band and the amount of glue applied. Run it at the right speed and you’ll be okay. PVC is a little tricky on them. It wants to melt so you have to be on your game. Stay far away from the melamine banding- and a lot of people will call that PVC so beware of that. They are serviceable machines. I like the small glue pots better but we used a hot air bander for years and years as a strictly frameless shop and they’ll get the job done.

Any brands of banding to look for or avoid?

White or black should be easy to source.
Matches for laminates I'll be at the mercy of wilsonart I'd imagine.
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Sorry I can’t tell you the brands to stay away from but most of the regional esgebanding suppliers are good. You’re looking for a heavy glue application- it’ll look more like rain droplets that are continuous versus the cheap stuff that the glue will look like clothe. I’d always recommend ordering in 7/8 or 15/16 and stay away from 13/16”. That is another tell that your getting quality and not generic.

Karl,

Which bander are you purchasing? How much of a difference did you notice in the glue line from the hot air to your current bander?

I have a Virtuex eb 25 and love it. Easy to use, fast to heat up, easy to clean. Mine is light enough for a mobile base and can tuck it away when not in use.
I found a company called Edgeco and they are awesome to deal with, and have tons of options. Usually same day shipping. I mostly use prefinished maple or walnut banding, and run that at full temperature, however as FM said, the pvc is alittle more temperamental. Run a few practice parts and you will figure it out.

Karl,

I put in a new Edgeteq S200 in September, you wont be disappointed.
Best of luck with the closet components.

I've been thinking about a hot air bander for the last few years but haven't pulled the trigger yet. I've been really happy with our edges on everything except high gloss/ultra matte panels with protective film since we switched to polyolefin glue. We have the bander set up so that the glue scraper takes off the last 0.1-0.2mm to stop the radius scraper from digging into the panel. With a protective fill, the glue scraper ends up referencing the film instead of the panel and scraper becomes the weak point.

We have a local edgebanding manufacturer(Panefri) that also makes banding for hot air and they are saying that the cost is about 30% more.

Good to know. Anything you learned about the machine that you wish you knew from the beginning?

I'm pretty sure it'll be a smart move. I need to drop a bunch of money on another carousel and some aggregates

My only complain about the new one vs the old one ( Highflex 1230 ) is they changed the method to grease the drive track... Otherwise its been fantastic.