How to Make Edge Banding Flush

Dave's got some bookcase components here. And the components are made out of plywood and it's not at all uncommon that then when you're working with plywood or any kind of sheets, you wanna cover the edge of that with a band. So Dave, what's the band secret here? Well, it's just hardwood edging. That's going to get a router profile put on it later. This is three-quarter by three-quarter. A lot of times the banding is, is narrower smaller. If that's all it's getting to just hardwood but there's always a problem where you can't make your hardwood as just the exact size of your plywood and get it all to line up. So it's always a little bit oversize. You got to bring that hardwood down. So it's flush with the surface of the plywood. So the whole point of this is how do you get this oversized banding even with the plywood and one of the things of course we're up against can they make veneer any thinner than they already are? Because pretty skinny already. It's very unforgiving. You don't have, you don't have much time. Dave's technique here is all about using hand tools in order to prevent sand through in order to not blast through that veneer. And also just to make this pretty simple. So step one is it looks like you're just knocking the glue off. It's knocking the glue off. And I usually keep my scraper at an angle like this that helps prevent it from tearing out. And all you want to do is get the big stuff out of there. If you've got some, some real blobs you can finesse your scraper. So you're really just taking that glue and not taking much in the wood. Any wood that you see peeling off here is just coming from that hardwood edge. I'm being very careful to leave that didn't veneer that you mentioned along. It really, the funky tool here is just a paint scraper and older paint spray that's been ground or filed in order to put a Burr on it. Correct. And boy that's doing a nice job of eliminating glue. Right. All right so step one is get rid of the glue. Now, would you use the scraper on the bandage? I would, if like here, where I'm down very close, you know I'll just keep going until it gets right down flush. And I can't feel any kind of an edge anymore Close how close you want to be like a fingernail catches kind of my Yeah, probably even less than that because otherwise it's a lot of scraping. But on this one you've got some spots where it's a bit higher still. Yeah, pretty proud. What would just put this up against a stop? And then I usually use my block playing the chord on that. There's no cards on these charges. So cordless plainer, I'm very set for a very fine cut. You don't want to take a lot of wood off. This is Birch which tends to be very narrow and, and, and tears easily. You're giving us care for why this could go South. And what I do is I ride the heel, the plane on the veneer. And again, hold that angle and this helps me index. So I don't end up tipping and stuff. And so it's interesting you're actually planning this at a little bit of an uphill angle. Yeah. But yeah, but it's so small and the farther you get down, the corrects itself. That's cool. It's a cool idea because of the registered. And he also, if I've got a lot to do rather than scrape, scrape, scrape, I'll just, you know playing these real high spots off. That's working good. Yeah. And you can It's very quiet. Yeah. It is quiet. You can get down very, very close. In fact, once you get used to this you can just get it right down flush and go right to your, is there a sander? Well, the edge banding application where you wouldn't use your block plane and it seems like a good problem so. Yeah, no, this is how, I mean this is typically how I do it rather than, you know try to set up to do it any other way. And I don't trust myself with a sander enough, especially belt Sanders. I just dig a hole for myself every time with those guys. All right. So with the block plane where are you saying you're done with the block plane? Yeah. And then there is now there's just that line. Yeah just a little hit. And then all, once you get all this down it's just a matter of hitting it with your sander and your work with a random orbit sander and even trying to grind these down to the random orbit. Sander is a risky business. Well, and what I've seen happen a lot is when there's a lot to take off people start to do this and you're not really in playing. And what's a big deal with these that would really mess you up. Cause the reason all those screw holes are in there is that in this final configuration these parts start stacking together. So if you start rounding the edge banding it's going to show that you're not going to have a tight inside corner here. Well, that's cool. That's a nice way even though it didn't use electricity, that's a Well then you go to the random orbit and you pop it out And I'd get my fix on power tools then. All right. It's a good tip, Dave. Thanks. You're welcome.