I've read quite a bit about the Conturo on this forum, which seem to be overwhelmingly positive on the machine, and part of the reason I decided to go ahead with the purchase. Thought I could add something for others by sharing my opinion after a week and a half of ownership, in case others are curious about coming up the experience curve.
Overall, I can see how this machine will be useful for a portion of the type of work we do. The majority of the work we do is on solid hardwoods, so didn't have a need for a production edgebander, only the occasional need to do the iron-on edge banding here and there. Working with a company opening a store in our local market, we suddenly had a need to do a lot of edge banding, and decided to make the jump and purchase the Conturo. Went all in and got the Conturo, accessory set, MFT 3 Conturo table, and MFK 700 edge router.
More than any other machine we've had, this one has a learning curve that took most of half a day before I could reliably get a output I considered satisfactory. If you get one, take the time to work through a number of scrap pieces using the settings you'd expect to use on your production pieces. The biggest area to work through for me was getting the Conturo to reliably apply glue to the edge banding from start to finish. It's spec'ed to work down to 0.5mm thick edge banding, but running 0.5mm thick edge banding resulted in often times no glue, or inconsistent glue being applied to the banding. The manual suggests doubling up the edge banding that passes through the machine (e.g. a second strip as a backer that doesn't receive glue) when using thin edge banding, but even this didn't not produce a consistent result. I suspect that the combination of thin edgebanding combined with a setting of lower glue volume really doesn't sit well with the extruding mechanism, so I had to dial up the glue volume to overcome this. Down side of course is that I'm getting a greater glue volume that results in a more prominent glue line as well as squeeze out as it passes over the roller. I haven't tried the machine with thicker edge banding.
Using the MFK to trim the edge banding has been an ok experience. I wish the depth adjustment was even finer, given the thickness of today's veneers, having micro adjustments is helpful. On the plus side, the ergonomics of the machine in the horizontal configuration are very nice, and also provides a stable hold for consistent tool placement relative to the workpiece. The bit and overall tool gums up quite badly when taking the edgebanding and glue off. I've found that waiting for the glue to cool alone isn't enough. The glue really needs to sit for 30+ minutes to avoid it becoming an unworkable mess (I had previously believed that once the glue was cool, it was set). It certainly impacts workflow, since if you've got a square piece that needs to be banded on four edges, you can really only do the two opposite edges, wait, trim, then repeat.
As with most things that have a learning curve, I expect that there's more improvement to be had with additional use. Already pretty pleased with the setup, although not the typical Festool love at first use common with the Domino, Tracksaw, etc, and hopefully that sentiment continues to grow.
Finally, I'm interested in trying out other colored glue pucks to see if I'm happier with the visibility of the glue line. The package sizes are excessively large (48 pucks) by my opinion, so I've got more "Natural" than I have immediate need for. For the purpose of experimentation, I'd love to swap / purchase / accept a small quantity of the "Brown" glue pucks and see how those go. Anyone interested in helping here? I'll report back with my comparison if this happens. Thanks in advance.
Overall, I can see how this machine will be useful for a portion of the type of work we do. The majority of the work we do is on solid hardwoods, so didn't have a need for a production edgebander, only the occasional need to do the iron-on edge banding here and there. Working with a company opening a store in our local market, we suddenly had a need to do a lot of edge banding, and decided to make the jump and purchase the Conturo. Went all in and got the Conturo, accessory set, MFT 3 Conturo table, and MFK 700 edge router.
More than any other machine we've had, this one has a learning curve that took most of half a day before I could reliably get a output I considered satisfactory. If you get one, take the time to work through a number of scrap pieces using the settings you'd expect to use on your production pieces. The biggest area to work through for me was getting the Conturo to reliably apply glue to the edge banding from start to finish. It's spec'ed to work down to 0.5mm thick edge banding, but running 0.5mm thick edge banding resulted in often times no glue, or inconsistent glue being applied to the banding. The manual suggests doubling up the edge banding that passes through the machine (e.g. a second strip as a backer that doesn't receive glue) when using thin edge banding, but even this didn't not produce a consistent result. I suspect that the combination of thin edgebanding combined with a setting of lower glue volume really doesn't sit well with the extruding mechanism, so I had to dial up the glue volume to overcome this. Down side of course is that I'm getting a greater glue volume that results in a more prominent glue line as well as squeeze out as it passes over the roller. I haven't tried the machine with thicker edge banding.
Using the MFK to trim the edge banding has been an ok experience. I wish the depth adjustment was even finer, given the thickness of today's veneers, having micro adjustments is helpful. On the plus side, the ergonomics of the machine in the horizontal configuration are very nice, and also provides a stable hold for consistent tool placement relative to the workpiece. The bit and overall tool gums up quite badly when taking the edgebanding and glue off. I've found that waiting for the glue to cool alone isn't enough. The glue really needs to sit for 30+ minutes to avoid it becoming an unworkable mess (I had previously believed that once the glue was cool, it was set). It certainly impacts workflow, since if you've got a square piece that needs to be banded on four edges, you can really only do the two opposite edges, wait, trim, then repeat.
As with most things that have a learning curve, I expect that there's more improvement to be had with additional use. Already pretty pleased with the setup, although not the typical Festool love at first use common with the Domino, Tracksaw, etc, and hopefully that sentiment continues to grow.
Finally, I'm interested in trying out other colored glue pucks to see if I'm happier with the visibility of the glue line. The package sizes are excessively large (48 pucks) by my opinion, so I've got more "Natural" than I have immediate need for. For the purpose of experimentation, I'd love to swap / purchase / accept a small quantity of the "Brown" glue pucks and see how those go. Anyone interested in helping here? I'll report back with my comparison if this happens. Thanks in advance.
