Product review: Burgess Edge router bits

[J.B. Bobbitt]

I purchased the Burgess Edge router bits and I've spent a few hours working with them. All things considered, I'm pretty satisfied and recommend them. But there's a few things to be aware of.

I'm building a built-in workspace and cabinets in my daughter's room out of cherry plywood, using edge banding on exposed plywood edges. I got cherry veneer plywood on a 5-ply core. The veneer is pretty thin (3/128" or so).

The instructions that come w/ the bits describe the use of shims to match the cuts to the plywood thickness. But my plywood (0.711") was a bit less than the ususal thicknesses discussed in the instructions (0.724", +/-) Its important to be able to measure the plywood thickness etc. acuurately.

I found that I had to fidget a lot to get the cut centered on the plywood so that it left the right amount of veneer, and that a good micro-adjustment for the depth-of-cut on the router is essential. I ended up going to my router table. Ditto for the bit used to rout the band insert. I ended up leaving the cut a little thin, so that I left more than the 1/2-veneer thickness recommended in the instructions.

Once I got the depth-of-cut and cut-thickness adjustments nailed, the bits worked well. Clean cuts, precise fit of the edge band in the cove, making a good clean edge band.

The bottom line: measure your plywood before you purcahse to make sure its workable, make sure your eyes and the router's micro-adjust mechanism is up to the task, and plan to spend some time adjusting.

-JBB

[JGS]

[edfan]

Would you say they're a better idea than using tongue and groove joints for that purpose? Is there a reason to spend the extra money?

[J.B. Bobbitt]

I'm no expert by any means, but here's what I think:

The Burgess Edge system produces an edge band with the glue seams along the inner surface of the veneers of the plywood. The internal profile of the band feathers into the veneers, so the seam is virtually invisible if the band material matches the veneer and the cuts are set up right. With the tounge and groove joint you've got to leave some thickness to the edge band so the joint will show.

I've never used tounge and groove edge banding. I doubt that there's any advantage to the Burgess Edge re: set up time or ease of use (I spent quite a long time getting the setup just so). The only advantage would be the virtually invisible seams.

-JBB

[J.B. Bobbitt]

I've never used tongue and groove either.

You gotta' be careful around here or Larry and LRod will call you out.

-JBB

[j]

I seem to remember past dicusions about this and that the reason for varience in plywood thickness is that it is manufactured to a strength standard instead of a thickness standard. As technology gets better plywood gets thinner.

jw

[JJ]

Did you trim your wood insert square to the plywood at the plywood edge? Or did you leave some extra thickness of wood, such as for rounding over or some other milling?

[J.B. Bobbitt]

So far, I've done about 16' with the edge band hand-planed flush. I'm still very impressed with the quality of the edge. I'm about to start the long edges of the desktop; on these edges, I'm going to try a 3/4" thumbnail profile. I'll let you know how it goes.

-JBB