Guide to edge banding machines | 3

Where are the panels formatted?

The workpiece edges look very different, when panels arrive at the edgebanding machine. The cut could have taken place on saw machines (sliding table saw, vertical beam saw, horizontal beam saw) or the panel could have been formatted on a CNC-maching centre. When internally transporting damages may occur. A problematic room climate may also be fatal as too much time passes between formatting and edging and the clamping plate begins to swell.

To be absolutely sure, buy a machine with jointing cutter. This unit uses two milling spindles/tools to cleanly mill the edges before gluing. To prevent a tear at the end of the panel, one spindle works in counter-flow and one in synchronisation whereas the synchronising panel naturally takes over the processing of the last piece of the panel. At this stage the use of robust diamond milling tools make sense which are visibly more expensive when buying but in return have a visibly longer duration.

Images

Premilling
HOMAG, 2012
WhisperCut Jointing cutterhead
LEITZ, 2012