Edge banding

[aschueler]

I am working on a changing table, made from maple. A few parts are made from maple plywood. The top is plywood, and what I want to do it rout the top with a roundover bit and then apply edge banding. I have never used edge banding before; will this work, even on a rounded over edge?

I can alternatively glue on some strips of solid maple, but I did that for some of the shelves and don't really like the way it looks. I tried 1/8" strips, which are a pain to glue as the bend when wet with glue, then did 1/4" strips which work better but show a clear difference in grain pattern.

[BiscuitSlayer]

Ever consider running some maple stock through a router or table saw to have a dado wide enough to accept the plywood edge? You could then use the router to have a roundover edge on the "trim".

[Don]

Hey, asc. We've done a lot with birch ply back in the day. We never applied veneer banding to a shaped edge like you are writing about though. A changing table surface is going to get beat up with things being dragged over the edge. Thin veneer will be susceptible to being damaged easily.

If it was me I'd simply apply solid stock to the edge, shape it like I wanted and call it a day. It is a changing table. If you are going to use thin stock like you wrote about and completely wet one side with pva glue then you better be ready to clamp the entire thing. Solid works better, either nailed on, splined, tongue, dadoed on like biscuit wrote about. Thin edgebanding is usually contact cemented in place for some of the reasons you experienced.

dawjr

[aschueler]

Appreciate the advice before I spend 25 bucks on edge banding then have a fit when it didn't work.

Unfortunately, I have used all the maple stock of the length I would need. However, I do have some red oak that I can cut to, say, 1-2 inch thick strips, miter the, then attach and round over. It will make a contrasting border; whether it would look good or not is the question. Oh well. As you say, it's a changing table. But damn the maple looks cool right now...later I will figure out how to use photobucket and post some pictures.

[Don]

Now you're thinking. Sometimes contrast is much better than a bad match. Have fun.

dawjr