Thread: sawing laminate

Originally Posted by watnee

I'm trying to cut some 19mm laminate coated particle board using a jig saw or a circular saw. Both manage to chip the laminate, the jig saw does so because of on its upward stroke (I guess) as to why the circular saw does so I'm really not sure. Am I using the wrong tools? or the correct tools the wrong way IE wrong blade/not sharp enough/technique? Any feed back will be much appreciated.

To cut laminate with a circular without chipping you needs a special laminate blade.

try
1) placing a strip of masking tape along the cut line
2) a finer blade
3) a jig saw blade that cuts on the down stroke

Cut the piece slightly oversize and finnish with a plane or belt sander

Cut with the laminate face down - this way both the jigsaw and the circular saw blade will be pressing the laminate into the board, not trying to pull it up into the air when the tooth passes the laminate.

Still use the masking tape trick, too (on the face) and a good 60-80 tooth sawblade suited for laminate or aluminium cutting.

Or cut 4-5mm away and clean up with a router.

thanks fellas appreciate your help.

Other tricks to try is to have a sacrificial board on the face and take your time.
I use to have this problem all the time. If I was doing more than one board I stacked them up if I could to reduce chipping on the middle faces.

You might also try doing a very shallow cut with the circular saw (2-3mm) before cutting the whole way through.

I bought a Festool TS55 circular saw and guide and this has reduced the number of chips to a minimum. This is probably due to the quality of the supplied blade and the fact that the guide acts like a board on the cutting line. The saw also has a sacrificial splinter guard, but I have not used this yet.

Lots of experiments to find what works best for you with what you have at hand.