Fun with laminate

[Per Swenson]

Hi all,

I cut laminate.

Today I use the festool ts 55.

Before, I used a regular circular saw and a straight edge.

Before I seamed cutting two pieces together overlapped with a

piece of masking tape over the cut.

To day I use the festool.

Seams come out perfect.

Trim the other up with a laminate trimmer.

Per

[Hank Knight]

Thanks for all the tips!!!!

Hank....tell me more about the pointy carbide thingy. When you say pointy do you mean something similar to a scriber point or a lathe tool bit ground to a point, like a threading tool?

Kyle,

The scoring tool I bought has a small piece of carbide approximately 3/8 to 1/2 inch long and maybe 1/8 or 5/32 square with a point on the business end (think of a pointed piece of key stock for an electric motor pulley). It's fastened (however they fasten carbide) to a metal handle. It' s the most basic of tools, but it works. I don't see why you couldn't use any sharp pointed piece of carbide, as long as you could get a good grasp of it, or anything else, for that matter, as long as it was hard enough to score the laminate face. I tried cutting laminate sheets to rough size with scissors, snips, table saw, router - all of the above, and this is by far the easiest method for me.

Hank

[Steve Clardy]

I use both the tablesaw [blade on normal] and a pair of PC electric shears.

[Doug Rogers]

1) For small pieces they make hand held laminate cutters. They look similar to tin snips, but have two cutters separated by an 1/8 of an inch. The finished edge is straight with no chips.

2) If you need to cut strips of laminate, get a hand held laminate slitter by Virutex. It can also be clamped to a bench top. This tool will allow you to cut perfect strips from a 1/4" to 6" wide. Yesterday I cut the laminate for all four sides of a kitchen cabinet door (18" x 30") in less than 2 minutes. The door material was 3/4" plywood. I cut the strips 1 1/4" wide so they would be super easy to apply and trim.

3) For breaking down full sheets I use the EZ-guide system. I put the laminate, to be cut, face up on a sheet of plywood. I place the guide on top of the laminate and set the blade depth to just cut through the laminate. The cuts are straight with no chipping. Read my post at the EurekaZone. (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...36005#poststop)

If you have a lot of cabinets to make the above mentioned tools are worth the investment. Cutting the pieces is the easiest and fastest part of the job. Your waste is reduced by 30-50%. Another tip to speed up the work is to use a spray gun to apply the contact cement. The contact cement comes in a 38 lb. bottle. You need a glue nozzle and a 12' hose. A swivel to separate the hose and the nozzel also makes life wonderful. The 38 lb. bottle seems to last for ever. Once you attach the hose and turn on the tank, leave the valve open. Control the flow and shut down the volume using the nozzel. Once the flow is stopped take the tip off and soak it in lacquer thinner. Leave it there until you start up again. No clogging problem.

It works for me!
Doug Rogers

[Neil Lamens]

Kyle:

I don't know, laminate is another material that is fun. Laminate imorted from Italy can get awfully beautful.

TS is thte way to go. I see where you tack a sacrificial fence to your fence, that works, you can also.Set your TS fence, lay a piece of 1/4" luan flat on the table against the fence, clamp it down, run your blade through it for zero clearance. Doesn't matter if it for edge treatment or top. Set your dimension.

Also get yourself in a position where you use the material to aid you in cutting. As you know, it bends.....use the physics to advantage.

Last thing.......you know those tin snips you mentioned, they work great for cutting your 1" x 96" length edges to dimension. Tin snips work for veneer better than laminate if cutting a distance.

Neil

[Jim Fox]

Hello from a another Kalamazooian (or something to that effect)

Another vote for the Table Saw. You got the fence taken care of so it won't go under it. Should be ok!

I have done it with a straight edge and a utility knife. Scored it, then broke it. Like you said, not the cleanest, but it works since you will clean it up after you trim route it.