Help cutting 16mm Melamite coated particle board.

[Astroman (Andrew Wall)]

Hi guys,

need some small advice (or is that advise ) I am about to cut 2, 16mm particle boards that is laminated with melamite, on top of one another to get duplicate layout. What would the best way be to ensure I dont get too much chipping on the edges? I know the idea of using a knife to cut the edges but what about the underside edge and the top edges of the other board? I will be using a hand jigsaw so I need to know what blade would be best and how to go about it. The cuts are mostly curved. I will be facing it with melamite strip afterwards.

Thanks..

[middy]

Masking tape ????

[Garyh]

Hello, Middy is right there.. I have heard use plenty of masking tape (the wide stuff) on all faces where the cut will be...
Gary

[Dennis]

Hi Andrew

To minimise the effects of chipping, on the UNDERSIDE of each board, score the melamine surface with a Stanley knife along the line of cut. Then, for small, straight pieces I have used a fine tooth back saw to saw along the cutting line drawn on the upper surface (facing you as you saw).

The theory here is that looking underneath the board as you cut, the teeth will exit the board a very tiny fraction to the outside of the scored line, so that any chipping will be stopped at the scored line. Your piece of board that you want is on the inside of the scored line.

For curved pieces, I wonder if you could use a Router on a tangent arm?

Cheers

Dennis

[GTB_an_Owl (Geoff)]

masking tape is normally used in that situation and scoring can be benificial on straight cuts (bit hard to do on circular or partly curved bits).
another thing to try would be put the two (face) melamine surfaces to-gether and use as fine a blade as you have.
other tricks would be to use scrap 3ply over the face or stick contact adhesive to the surfaces.
hope that helps

[GTB_an_Owl (Geoff)]

PS
make sure the two pieces are clamped pretty well to-gether

[Dennis]

Another option would be to do the circular scoring using a radius arm. A long, thin piece of wood screwed in at the centre of the circle, with a sharp nail driven into the wood at the appropriate point, could trace the scribe mark.

Then, if you have access to an (scrolling) electric jig saw, you could anchor the jigsaw on a radius arm and scroll around the scored line?

This assumes you don't mind having a hole at the "centre" of the work piece where the radius arm would be screwed into.

Cheers

Dennis

PS - as always, test your chosen approach on a piece of scrap wood first!

[Dennis]

Just one final thought - if you want the cut edge on the curved (circular?) bits to be nicely at right angles to the board surface, I think using a Router on a radius arm attached to the centre of the curve would be the most accurate way of doing this.

Cheers

Dennis

[xstream (John)]

Andrew I would go with Dennis's suggestion of using a router and radius arm. It works excellently on laminex bench tops so should be fine with melamite. The important thing is to only use a good quality carbide router bit as the tempered steel ones will go blunt very quickly.