Melamine discovery

[Bonehenge (B A R R Y)]

I don't usually work with melamine, but need to cut some closet parts.

My normal blades, a WWII and a Freud, chip the edges of melamine more than I can tough up and hide. I was ready to go out a drop $90 on a "real" melamine blade, when I noticed that the highest rated melamine blades all have a negative tooth hook angle. My Forrest Chopmaster also has a negative hook angle, so I moved it from the SCMS to the table saw and let it rip. The Chopmaster does a fantastic job of cutting melamine on the table saw! I use a sled, so the bottom is supported.

If you've got a Chopmaster, and need to work a small amount of laminate material, give it a try!

[Tanus]

Before I had a table saw, I had a similar problem and used a handheld circular saw with a guide.

Depth of cut was about 2/3 the thickness of the thickness of the board, and then again on the other side. No chipping at all.

[Wolf Lahti]

Putting masking tape (or the low-tack blue tape from 3M) over the cut line is supposed to reduce or even eliminate chipping.

I haven't tried it myself buut know those who swear by it.

[Robatoy]

Till you pull off the tape. Even the low-tack.

The only way, after having cut thousands upon thousands of sheets of melamine of varying qualities, is either with a scoring saw or a router-clean-up after a saw cut. Barry just got lucky by having everything 'just right'.

[B A R R Y]

I've never had luck with tape, either.

I didn't even think about router clean up. I'll remember that in case I start to see edge damage.

[franz fripplfrappl]

I've covered my saw line with masking tape which seems to help.

[George]

The blade's the answer. ATB works to scribe the sides of the cut, negative rake doesn't hammer the flakes loose. Not sure the tape would reduce the impact and chipping much with a conventional blade, but it isn't going to make nasties. Means it's a cheap, though not the best, option.