Grizzly G7910 Hand Held Edge Bander

We have spent a little time working with this and found it to be a generally solid tool for its intended purpose. Well done Virutex.We have written a more complete review at www dot denverfinishcarpenters dot com. Listed under Tools.

I wanted to like this thing. It does work and it is faster than using a handheld iron, however I just found it more difficult to set up than my mini handheld iron and my large plywood pieces had to be clamped down so I could use two hands on this thing. So I stopped using it and went back to my $12.00 mini iron instead which honestly works just about as well. So unless you edgeband a massive amount of plywood I’d say don’t get this.

I'm a cabinet maker with a small shop and antagonized over this purchase -- over the years I had been doing a fair amount of edge banding but not enough to justify an edge banding machine, or in this case, a hand held edge bander. However, the small amount I had to do I did with an iron and block of wood, which was alright, but kind of slow and tedious and I would always think of buying a bander, that there has to be a quicker way and I'd go online looking at edge banding machines again. The right job came in and I decided to buy one of the table top versions, like the Rockler or Milwaukee (the same thing) as it turns out, both were out of stock, so I bought this instead -- I'm happy I did. After several trial runs and a close to re-packaging/return, I got the settings right and it works great. Really. It is important to me that a tool pay for itself in a short time and this bander did so with that one job. I finished in a matter of a couple hours what would have been a full day of tedious work. And now, I can turn to it and band a piece quickly without the hassles associated with the iron method -- this alone saves an enormous amount of time on any project. I also do a fair amount of curves I'm happy the table top versions were out of stock, because I probably would have cheaped-out and bought one of them instead. The settings, once I figured them out, aren't a problem, but it took some doing at first..My only complaint is with the spool that holds the edge-banding material, it is poorly designed and can be quite frustrating. You'll find that you need to keep you eye on it for it to run smoothly -- it is really poorly designed, pathetic. But I'd still buy this again and I'm happy I own it, despite this flaw.

It’s awesome

Very nice tool for applying preglued edge banding. I couldn't afford $35,000 for an entry level gluepot edgebander for my cabinet shop at start up 8 months ago. And I didnt want to use the trusty old iron for all my banding.I only have 4 small concerns with it.It is kind of complex to set up, but once you do, adjusting from 23/32 to 3/4 inch wide panels are relatively easy.It sometimes does not do a good job sticking the first inch of banding and sometimes the last inch on a panel. You need to have a hot clothes iron laying around to make sure the it's really down. I think it may be a skill problem on my part that a few hundred feet more edgebanding experience may improve.It is also really easy to burn the wood if you don't keep it moving. One thing I like is that the heat gun has a sheet metal duck bill that directs the hot air directly between the glue and the panels edge where they meet. You just need to keep the thing moving at a pretty good clip.It seems really fragile. I always lay it directly on the floor, never on a bench. I don't think it would survive a fall.One major advantage of this thing over any of the other systems I've seen (and others have commented on) is that you can easily do inside and outside curves since there is only one pressure roller. All in all it is a good alternative to my wall-mart iron.

I have a small one man shop and love this bander. I have owned a Brandt 20k bander in the past, and while this doesn't do all the Brandt did it is very good for preglued banding. You can do many shapes because of its single roller and portability and straight edges. After using it for a while I find it very easy to adjust for different thickness materials. I made a stand for it that I mounted to the side of my bench. It is simply a shelf long enough for it with a 2 1/2" x 3/4" plywood rip mounted on edge in the middle. I place the bander on it like I am going to band the plywood. It holds it up and will keep it from being tipped over. I have applied thousands of feet of edgeband with it and find it very useful, much faster than most other ways. And, it takes up a lot less room than my Brandt did. There are a few negatives, you can't band anything less than about 4 1/2" without figuring another way to use it. I had a lot of narrow pieces to do for one job and mounted it sideways on a table by drilling two holes for the rods and shimming it up and locking it down. Then I made a sled for the pieces lined up to fit the opening. It worked great. I would highly recomend this bander for smaller shops and for people who can use preglued edging.

I have a small cabinet shop. Couldn't afford a used $5000 hot pot machine, so I tried one of these. It took about 30 minutes to adjust, probably coulnd have been 10 minute if I bought the 7/8" banding. But I got it right and man is this fast. 3/4" banding goes on perfectly straight. You can move this faster than you want, I use low power most of the time. I'd say you can do a 4 foot edge in 15 to 20 seconds. All in all a very good machine, not like the $20,000 power feed, trim shave models, but for a small shop more than adequate.