A control system for an axial skinning apparatus (100), including: •a force to cause a ceramic honeycomb part (110) to pass through the skinning apparatus (100); •a force that urges flowable cement on to the ceramic honeycomb part (110); •a sensor to detect the force on the cement; •a sensor to detect the force on the ceramic part; and•a controller (300) which receives: •a signal from the sensor on the flowable cement, •a signal from the sensor on the ceramic part (110), or both, and the controller (300) controls the pressure set point (310) of the cement source based on one or both of the received signals, and the controller (300) adjusts control parameters using feedback control and pseudo feed forward control. A method of using the axial skinning apparatus (100) is also disclosed.