Edge Trimming problems with Mfk 700

madera

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Joined
Oct 13, 2010
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I just bought the Mfk 700 and am trying to trim preglued prefinished birch edgebanding on prefinished plywood.  The problem I am having is there is always a small strip of glue that gets left on the top of the plywood that is usually scrapped off with the hand trimmer.  I can't seem to get the router to take it off with out scarring the veneer.  If anyone else has tried to trim preglued edge banding with this router please let me know if you have experienced this problem.  As it is now I have it set about .5mm tall and trim the final path by hand.....which is what i was trying to avoid by buying this tool.
 
I had this situation too...
The cause for that :

Pre-finished ply is very inconsistent in thickness. You can see this easy by looking at the top of the sheet against a light. It will have a "wavy" surface. Therefore , the MFK will not be able to get you a clean cut all the way.
It also sounds like that you are melting the glue to much while applying the tape. Therefore the glue is "spilling" over the edge and sticking to the plywood face. I noticed that some brands of pre glued tape melt more then others. It's really a hit and miss.

 
Take a stanley blade and slide it along the glue edge flush/flat to the ply.

Rehau do a set of trimming blades / edge cutting tools that solve this problem too...

I'm away at the moment, I think I have a spare set I might be ebaying - I use them with my edge bander. I tend to use hand tools to remove the edge as the rolling wheel of the router bit in the MFK 700 gets a bit blocked up by it...
 
hmmmm.... bummer....

For those more experienced... please confirm or deny my suspicion.  it appears to me, the real value of the MFK 700 lies in the 1.5 deg horizontal accessory table.  Having a horizontal blade, with a large reference surface area is a very effective way to trim the tops of hardwood edging. 

to the OP, is this the task you are describing?

Other functions in the standard vertical orientation are not as unique vs. other laminate routers..right?  Of course, the Festool is of higher quality and will work with the rails, dust collection, etc.  I get that part....

Other than using the MFK 700, what other options are there?  A block plane, but with high risk to mar the laminate surface.  A bent neck chisel?  A chisel plane....  what am I missing?    I will be doing more of this in the near future and would appreciate any input...

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Actually,yes, I did use one of those gold shinny things and it worked fine. I used it for laminate edging on a worktop. Finished the last bit off with an open blade.... No 240V how the hell can it work ? :-)
 
I have found that the inconsistency in the refinished ply is the problem. As a solution I trim the banding about 2/10ths of a mm tall then trim with a hand edge band trimmer.  Works well and still way faster then doing it all by hand. 

As for unfinished ply you can dial it right down and make a perfect trim.....pretty amazing.  Then I just hit it with the fastbreak ( http://www.fastcap.com/estore/pc/FastBreak-Sander-3p2472.htm )  and your done.  So much faster then hand trimming>>>>tho at a price.
 
+1 on the chisel plane it does work but needs to be kept sharp when messing with glue.  I thought the prefinished ply and edge banding sounded to good to be true—I was right [sad]  I don't do that no more.
 
For the slightly uneven pre finished sheets....
Maybe a flat piece of wood / metal behind the edge and clmaped own.  Use that for a reference surface for the Horizontal 1.5 deg MFK.  The blade drops much lower than the horiz. table. ?
 
Just got back from the cabinet class in Henderson. Had a chance to use the MFK700 with iron on edging. When running the MFK700 horizontally along the top edge to remove the excess banding material, the router friction and heat would pulled up the glue and leave a residue on the surface. Steve Brace, the Festool instructor, said to just run the MFK700 back over the edge left to right this time and the residue was gone.
 
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