Cutting round edged laminate work top

[Rick]

I need to trim some post formed 30mm thick laminate worktops ... I have tried cutting with a nice new 50 tooth tct circular saw blade. Cutting from the rear gives me a perfectily neat cut right up to where the curved face wraps around the edge .. then it chips badly on the curved under face.

Obvioulsy this is due to that face not being cut from the rear side ... which I can't do, without spoiling the long cut.

Any tips ... ?

I watched the kitchen fitters when they did it, and they cut to aprox length then clamped on a guide bar and run a router along the edge taking off a about a 5mm cut .

I don't have a router bit that will handle 30mm thick ... so welcome ideas, or I'll have to invest in the bit.

Rick

[andy hall]

I think you just answered it, Rick.

This is a job for a router. Generally, a circular saw is OK for straight across cuts, but the end of a postform creates an angle to the blade and that's where the trouble comes. The bits do tend to chip.

Options are to rent a jig, router and bit if you have none of these, or if you have a 12.7mm router, then getting a reasonable TC bit will do the job.

[Mr Fuxit]

I don't understand this. I've always cut PF worktop from the front, upside-down, with no problems. It's certainly never spoiled the long cut!

[david lang]

You need to start the cut from the curved edge side.

Dave

[Ed Sirett]

First, put masking tape onto the laminate straddling the line of the cut. make sure the tape is fully smoothed down on to the laminate. I learnt this from a couple of American chippies who were over here. It does work.

My guess is that it contains the back-bounce of the laminate so that it does not break.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Cut up to just before the face. Do the rest with a jigsaw on the 'waste' side of the cut. Trim the excess with a rasp.

[Rick]

Mabe my descriptive powers were not that good ...cutting from the rear side gives me a perfectly good cut all the way across the width - right up untill the curved 'post formed' edge .... at that point the saw is no longer cutting from the 'rear' ... and as it goes through teh curve cuts progressively as if form teh 'good side' .... result is it chips the edge.

I couldn't start the cut fro the non-post formed edge as there is only around 20mm to cut off and that is not enough to support the saw, ithas to rest on the 'other side of the cut'

Anyway I have taken the plunge and bought a 32mm router bit ......... so I'll give that a go.

Rick

[Matt]

It would have worked, you just cut off the "wrong" end!

[vonryan]

As a joiner I use a C saw and cut the worktop from the undersid

starting at the front or curved edge.

Also a good handsaw works well start from the front edge with th worktop face side up

And reverse cutting jigsaw blades are a good investment, I recomen Freud ones #FT101BR best place to buy these is from

-- vonryan

[vonryan]

and I reckon an electric plane is a good tool to finish the job, agai

start from the front edg

-- vonryan

[Rick]

I had to start cut from the 'other end' as the saw had to rest on the worktop ... the 30m I was cutting off - would not support the saw.

Anyway I bought the router bit 10mm x 32mm, used it today and it did the job perfectly.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I have one, but I prefer a belt sander for this job, although with a new fine toothed TC tipped blade, the circular saw cut doesn't really need any much finishing off afterwards. (I also cut from the underside of the front edge -- I think those were the instructions which came with the first one I ever did.)

One problem with an electric plane is the cutting cylinder axis is rarely perfectly parallel with the base plate. This doesn't matter for a few sweeps, but if you keep going over the work in the same direction, you end up with the planed edge at an angle as the inaccuracy adds on each time. This is easily avoided by alternating directions of each sweep so the error cancels out, but that isn't safe at the laminated front edge of a worktop.

[Matt]

BUT if you'd cut the worktop at the other end the saw WOULD have had something to rest on!

[Andy Luckman (AJL Electronics)]

And I reckon that if you don't start making some sense, your contributions will end up in a multitude of killfiles.

[Mr Fuxit]

I disagree with you on this! With a hand saw the cut should be started at the rear face side up.