Re: Need tips for cutting melamine!

Hi, Renata:

I use a Unifence and it sits pretty tight to the table if you adjust it that way. I still lift the sheet a little bit while feeding because I've had sheets try to slip under the fence if the cut goes buggy.

When I order melamine from the supply house, what I'm really ordering is melamine covered particleboard.

I think that melamine is a component of all high pressure laminates but I'm not really sure.

I think that melamine is the name of a resin that goes into a lot of things, including laminates.

In the instance involving the OP I took him to be using the term melamine as a generic for high pressure laminate and I was probably wrong to do so.

Regards, Tom Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania Remove CLUETOKEN to reply to email.

Melamine is a plastic made from a white crystalline compound, C3H6N6. It is not a registered trademark.

-- Jack Novak Buffalo, NY - USA

I see two mixed messages mixing it up here.

Melanine sheets (as I perceive them) are particleboard with an extremely dense covering - often white. The white coating sometimes extends beyond the particleboard. This causes especially vicious paper cuts. With these products, you want a gap underneath your fence so that the particleboard rubs against the fence and any overhanging melanine coating does not mess up your measurements.

Laminate, on the other hand, is thin plastic veneer. When you cut that, you do NOT want it to slip under the fence or you get all kinds of trouble including kickback. Some fences have a slot (or you can buy add on accessories) that the laminate slides into. Thus the laminate cannot curl up away from the fence and mess up your cut. The laminate also cannot slide underneath your fence.

That is MHO. Yours may vary.

Ah. So melamine is the resin. Interesting to know. Wonder if it IS the same stuff as these use in laminates. Site one poster gave is good, but not specific as to whether melamine is also used in laminate. Seems to indicate resin may be similar/same but process of forming different.

THanx Renata

Mask tape. The good side upside down. Cut it with a $5 plywood blade (>40 tooth).

It's very hard to score and cut exactly the same line with a circular saw. If you get the board from a borg, just ask them to cut it for you with their big pannel saw without any chip.