Edge Banding and Dowel Joints

So I've been slacking a bit on posting my progress.  I've actually started to build the cabinet but I will talk more about that in the next post.  First, some back fill.  In my previous post the last thing I mentioned I wanted to test was edge banding.  Edge banding is this pretty nifty stuff that's used to cover the edges of plywood so it looks like solid wood.  I'm using the kind that you iron on.  There's glue on the reverse side, the iron heats the glue which bonds to the plywood.  Edge banding is slightly wider that the plywood so you can trim it perfectly flush with the wood using an edge trimmer or a router with a flush trim bit.  I used a scrap piece of wood left over from my joint testing for my first practice test.  Here's some picts:

Ironed but not yet trimmed

After trimming

Trimmed flush with the surface

I was amazed at how easy it was to apply the edge banding and to get a nice looking result.  The router made it very easy to trim the banding perfectly.  This led me to make another design change.

Originally, I had wanted the top edges of the cabinet to by mitered in order to hide the plywood edge.  I tried a few times to make a successful lock miter joint but it was too hard to be consistent.  So, with the success of the edge banding, I decided to change the top joints to dowel joints and cover the exposed edges with edge banding.  I tried it out and I think I'm pretty happy with the results:

Plywood joined with a dowel joint, edges covered with edge banding

Next post will have some picts from me finally starting to build the cabinet.  Stay tuned...