Recently, I ran out of storage space due to all the fun new turning accessories I purchases during my last turning binge. I had a lot of fun on that binge, but with all the new stuff falling off the auxiliary workbench, I knew it was time to pay the piper, and build some new shop storage.

As I usually do when it comes to shop storage and furniture, I turned to my material of choice: Melamine. It is strong enough, resist the abuses of the shop, is easy to keep clean, and is the fastest way back to doing the fun woodworking.

However, some tasks when working melamine are just a chore. I am thinking here about edge banding. If you are not familiar with this process, this means applying iron-on, PVC edge banding to the exposed particleboard edges of the the melamine panels. There is a minimum of 12 edges to be banded (more if you do the tops and bottoms of the cabinets) for each cabinet. Just a few cabinets, and the number of edges adds up—adds up, that is, to a task that can get a little old.

I added six new wall cabinets with slab doors, where my lumber storage used to be. That is a total of 72 edges to band. Thankfully, I had my trusty edge banding trimmer. With this little gizmo, you simple grab ones end of the panel, and run it across the banded edge. It trims both sides of the edge banding simultaneously, in about two seconds. I usually do follow up with some fine grit sand paper, to ease the sharp corner, but that is it. done.

There are other ways to trim the edges that do not involve this special edge trimmer, but using this trimmer is my favorite way, with one exception. One alternative way is to use a file, like a mill bastard file, that also has cutters on the edge. This is the preferred way to trim wood edge banding, only because the trimmer tends to catch the grain sometimes, tearing the edge banding. So why not use a file all the time? You could, and some of the old-timers do, but I find the edge trimmer faster and not susceptible to slipping and causing damage or cutting too deep. You can also use a laminate trimmer, the kind that looks like a mini-router, with a flush trim bit, but I find these too prone to slips that cause damage, because they are difficult to balance on the edge.

So when and what kind of banding trimmer to get? I find that using a file takes me on average about one minute per edge. That may not seem like much, but that is 72 minutes, over an hour, on a job that was only six wall cabinets. So if your time is worth $22 per hours, that would be the break-even point. As far as what kind, I have used a few, and find that the FastCap is the best bang for the buck. It is more sturdy that some of the others, and the cutters can be easily sharpened by simply lapping them on a sharpening stone.

You can find the Banding Trimer that I use at these Woodworking Suppliers: