I’m edgebanding some plywood doors for cabinets. I’m using 1/8″ + thickness for the edgeing and I’m wondering what’s the best (read safest) way to mill these pieces.
For my first go-round I clamped a sacrificial piece of 3/4″ plywood to the table saw fence, set the fence to the desired 1/8″ thickness for the cut (between the blade and the fence) then clamped another large piece to the top of the table to make a sacrifical table (rather than making a zero clearance insert). This worked fairly well except for the risk of catching the front end of the push stick in the blade.
Ripping the strips off the left hand side of stock and re-setting the fence each time would, I suspect be a better operation so the thin piece isn’t trapped between the blade and the fence. I just haven’t yet come up with a reliable way to reset the fence accurately to get a consistent thickness. And running such thin stock through my planer doesn’t sound like such a good idea, either.
If you had a couple miles of this stuff to make, what would be your method of choice?
Thanks for any advice.
From Beautiful Skagit Co. Wa.
Dennis
Replies
Hi,
I just did a similiar thing recently. On the Taunton press site there are some visdeo tips. On one of them he shows how he rips thin moldings from wide stock. I did the same thing for ripinig egde bandings. http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/pages/wvt074.asp I did this used the push stick as he discribed and the stuff came out fantastic. After each strip I jointed the edge to remove the burn marks from the saw. After the edge bandings were glued I hand planed lightly and scrpaed. It was a joy. The longesst piece was 70". Had a couple of those. Good luck.
I do a lot of this stuff, but my finished banding is 1/4".
I usually select good straight stock as free of knots as possible. Use a good rip blace, and set it to about 1" above the 4/4 (15/16") stock, and 5/16" off the fence. Make a push stick out of 1/4" MDF with a good slot that fits the work. Run it through with a good even pressure, and you won't get trapped or kicked back.
Adjust your jointer to take about 1/32" off the stock. I usually cut the stock about 3" longer than the longest dimension of the doors, and then cut some of these in half for the bottoms and tops.
Begin by jointing one edge, placing that edge against the fence, and ripping a strip. Joint that edge, and repeat, so on and so forth until you've ripped it all down.
The jointed edge always goes to the ply.
Always cut your ply a about 1/4" wider than the finished width, but right on on the length.
I usually look at the project and see if I can glue up more than one door at a time, and then rip'em in half.
Tops and bottoms are glued first, flush trimmed, and ripped to finished width. Sides are glued on next and flush trimmed.
After all the trimming is done, I put a 60 or 80T crosscut blade in the saw, and trim the doors down to finished width, ends first, then sides to prevent tear out. Don't do this on the jointer as it's easy to get'em out of square. Round off with a 3/16" bit and sand.
Bottom line is this, cut your banding thicker. It's safer, and you can trim it to the width you want when it's on the doors., and it's easier to apply using cauls.
BTW, I think the wider looks better.
If I had miles to do then safety and economy would dictate resawing 3/32" flitches from 6" or wider stock on the bandsaw. Resaw each face, plane, resaw and so on. With a well tuned BS you can get 5 flitches out of 25/32" finished 4/4 stock. Next plane the flitches using a carrier board (MDF or Melamine) with lentghwise strips of 2-sided tape (I use face plate turning tape from Rockler since it works more than once and is much easier to get of than that the thin carpet tape). Finally rip the flitches to width on the BS.
If I could get out the wish list and buy the top item on it, it would be a Peformax ShopPro Drum sander. Which is what I use now for flatening bandsawn plys for lamination, except I have to use my buddy's machine at his shop 30 miles away to do so. The drum sander yields more consistant thicknesses, 0 tearout and eliminates the 10-15% of the flitches that the planer tends to eat even with the carrier.
Another option would be to find a cabinet shop with a sexy Euro edge bander and get a quote to have them do it for you.
John O'Connell - JKO Handcrafted Woodworking
Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid - John Wayne
I always make my edgings 1/4" thick and shoot 'em on with 3/4" brads. I set the TS fence for 1/4"(no plywood fence) and just rip away. The saw blade cuts thru the pushstick onthe first pass.Buck
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