Great difficulty cutting 18mm MDF with T101B jigsaw blade

May 03, 2014 30 Replies

Fed up watching that crap. They have the ideea patented to the eyes. One of the backers is a lawyer and they are attempting to make it compulsory. If its forced on the Yanks we won't be far behind.

All because some untrained idiot was using a small electric saw with out a riving knife or blade guard, whilst holding it by hand. Now we have elf'n's afty legislating for the brain dead, I gave up on the intelligence of the a verage yank the day I saw a note stuck on a wide angle side mirror warning that objects may appear further away. Doh ! . The majority of table saw accidents would NOT have been saved with the saw stop.

MDF clogs blades so you need one with coarse teeth. If you have a pendulum action on the saw, then turn it on. Don't force it. You may also find you get a better straight line following a drawn line rather than using a straight edge to run the machine along.

True for *cheap* jigsaws - a proper professional one however is a completely different class of tool and quite capable of cutting a straight line.

The OP's ancient AEG is no slouch. I have one too. £100+ 40 years ago IIRC

You use a router for that.

almost normal for jigsaws. if hole is critical I cut a template in

1/4" ply and use a bearing guided router bit.

If hole is square then if possible use circular saw.

I do find reverse tooth blades (down cutting blades) that cut the opposite way are much better on MDF .... I buy them for laminates, but find them good on MDF

But what do you cut the ply template out with....?

Jim K

Using a jigsaw with a fence is a classic mistake. Follow the line by steering it.

NT

I use a router and a fence..

I have a hole cutting attachment which allows you to cut the hole direct. There will be a minimum size, though, which may be too large with many larger routers.

Lidl recently did what they called a combination cutter which will route holes from 50-160mm radius. Only snag with it is the 4.8mm collet size - most places don't stock bits.

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