Melamine discovery

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.

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.

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'.

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.

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

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.