As practice shows, it is very difficult to make high-quality cuts of chipboard with a durable melamine coating. Rough tools often leave nicks in the cuts. You will no longer be able to assemble a neat door or shelf with such defects. Cutting laminated chipboard at home usually occurs when repair work or furniture making.
How to cut chipboard without nicks and chips?
Special equipment
Of course, the most the best option- use a special formatting machine. With its help you can get any cut. But you can’t buy such a tool for private needs, and at a manufacturing enterprise that provides sawing services, such a procedure will cost good money. Cheaper way - Circular Saw. There are even special saws for chipboard. But they will also require the use of special tools. However, many should have in their arsenal milling machine, which will correct the rough cut with a milling cutter. If you have experience working on such a machine, it will not be difficult to obtain a satisfactory appearance cut.
Handy tools
You can cut chipboard with a jigsaw, but this will be a rough cut. The edges may turn out not straight, but sinusoidal, and in the worst case, the edge will not be perpendicular to the front surface.
When cutting, you must be prepared for the fact that the jigsaw file will begin to “walk” due to the bend. You need to cut with a margin of 4 mm, and then level the edge.
Cutting laminated chipboard at home using a jigsaw reduces the formation of chips. When cutting, you need to increase the speed and reduce the feed, setting the pumping to 0. Only sharp saw blades designed for special cutting of chipboard should be used. Only by following these rules can you achieve good result. After cutting, the end that will be visible can be sanded down. Additionally, before cutting, as already mentioned, you need to cut a line along which the cut will take place. But we do not move the file along this line, but near it - then the chips will not touch the limits you need. In the end, all that remains is to finish the edges with sandpaper.
Indents from the contour can be up to 4 mm. Then these few millimeters are removed cylindrical cutter using a hand-held electric router with a bearing. The bearing is guided along a long level fixed to the back of the sheet.
In addition, if the chips are in a non-working, low-visibility area, they can be disguised with a marker or felt-tip pen matched to their color.
The most undesirable way to cut chipboard- with a file (oddly enough, in old textbooks a lot of material is devoted to this method). You can use a plane, but preferably an electric one with carbide knives. But here we must take into account that dust from under the plane will scatter throughout the room.
And the most comfortable way- by using hand router along the guide. The end should be smooth and at 90 degrees, there will be no chips, and when the vacuum cleaner is turned on, there will be almost no dust.
Craftsmen recommend using a hacksaw for such cutting. If you have a saw with a fine tooth, then the operating procedure is as follows:
1) Draw a cutting line with a knife. Sharpen your saw before starting work. The knife should be applied with slight pressure to cut the laminated upper layer.
2) Glue a tape with an adhesive base along the intended cutting line. It will help keep the decorative layer from cracking. You can also use paper tape.
3) The tool should be kept very acute angle. In this case, the angle should not be higher than 30 degrees - this will reduce the likelihood of chipping. During the cutting process, you need to apply light pressure on the saw. If the work is performed with a power tool, such as a jigsaw, then there is no need to rush and press on it
4) After finishing cutting, the cut can be cleaned with a file. But in many cases this is not necessary, since the small teeth of the saw prevent the laminate from being deformed. If torn edges have formed, then delicate work with a rasp will bring the cut into proper shape. The grinding tool must be guided towards the center from the edge - this will minimize possible damage to the top layer.
5) The glued strip of veneer will give the final beauty to the cut.
Of course, cutting laminated chipboard at home does not imply professional quality and high speed. For those who are in a hurry, we can offer sawing of chipboard with a grinder. A wood disc is used as a cutting element. A strip is attached to the chipboard with clamps so that the grinder can be guided along it for an even cut. After cutting, possible chips are processed with the same grinder, only with a different attachment - for grinding. But a more gentle option is to use sandpaper.
We recently bought coffee table, the price is inexpensive, but there is a “but”. The height of the table is too big for our interior. It would be nice to reduce the height of centimeters by 10. As they say, we are not looking for easy ways, I decided that
I can handle it with my own hands.
I remembered that on our website there is an asoleg specialist who did it, I am, of course, far from him, but some recommendations may help. I contacted him, explained the problem and he kindly shared his secret. With his permission, I publish his cutting technology furniture chipboard no chips.
Everything turned out to be banally simple. Mark the cutting line. Then, using a stationery knife, using a ruler, we cut through the top layer of chipboard. Just run the knife several times with little effort along the cut line. (I recommend practicing on an unnecessary piece of wood particle board) If you press very hard, the decorative layer will begin to swell and the result will not be very beautiful.
Next, retreating 1-2 millimeters from the intended line towards the rough part, we cut with a jigsaw or a suitable saw with teeth directed towards the saw handle. We make a notch on the opposite side of the cut to prevent chipping when completing the cut. And saw through to the end. You need to cut carefully, slowly. Then, using medium-grain sandpaper attached to a block, we clean the end of the part. If necessary, we remove the millimeter that we retreated. My cut turned out almost perfect; after sanding, there were no burrs at all. The photo shows the difference between the left and right side of the cut. Well, accordingly, if both parts of the chipboard are needed, we cut with a knife on both sides of the cut. We measure the thickness of the cut with a jigsaw or file and add 2 millimeters. The result is the distance that should be between the slits made with a stationery knife. We cut exactly between these lines. Then there will be no scuffing on the other side either. Naturally, you need to use a sharp tool, I use a tool.
Everything turned out great. On the finished table, my wife did not find the place where I cut.
Thank you for your assistance and assistance asoleg.
Tags: How to cut chipboard without chipping, how to cut chipboard without chipping.
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If you like to do things with your own hands, read the article.
Today we will tell you what affects the quality of sawing, how to saw off chipboard evenly and cleanly, and also how you can saw with a guide and without a guide with a regular circular saw.
We will show it using a hand-held circular saw as an example, but this does not affect the sawing techniques in any way, the difference is only in minor details. You can get similar quality cuts with a cheaper tool if you follow our advice.
What affects the quality of chipboard cutting?
IN in this case We will be sawing chipboard, this is the most capricious material for sawing, because it has longitudinal and transverse layers, quite delicate and thin veneer. But on the other hand, it has a hard adhesive base, which will also interfere with us.
Saw blade. How to choose it?
When cutting chipboard, the saw blade must simultaneously cut cleanly and be durable, because the properties of the glue are very close to glass and dull the tool itself quite quickly. Therefore, in the process of cutting chipboard, you need to choose enough good wheels to cut with them without loss of quality for a long time.
What is the difficulty of sawing with a circular saw with discs?
If we look at the cut of the workpiece, we will see that it is full of burrs, because “by hand” it is practically impossible to guide the saw straight through the cut.
On the saw blade there is a difference in height between the body of the saw itself and the sawing part - the tooth. Due to this distance, the disc has the ability to direct its position in the cut. Accordingly, as soon as it changes its geometry, the rear teeth begin to hit the chipboard workpiece and leave marks on it.
It is important to place the workpiece face down. Why?
The disk rotates from bottom to top; it cuts the pile of the workpiece upward onto the base. Thus, below, on the front side, we always have a clean surface. Problems begin to form at the top, where the teeth exit the workpiece. This is how explosions, chips, and piles happen.
How to minimize them, or avoid them altogether? There are several simple tricks and we will tell you about them now.
Technique 1. Cutting along the guide
We install a guide (rail) on the workpiece, set the sawing depth and make the cut. As you can see for yourself, even on outside There are no chips or explosions in our chipboard workpiece. The cut itself was smooth with no signs of scoring or side waves. Why such difference?
What is the merit of the guide?
When we saw with a disk, we inevitably move the saw, the so-called “iron movement” is obtained. That is, when we move our hand, we constantly move the saw to the right and left. A guide that has a hard edge allows you to avoid this.
Accordingly, when we guide the saw along the guide, it does not move and the saw blade itself works smoothly, without changing its position. The result is an ideal line parallel to the guide.
What to do if you don’t have a hand-held circular saw and guide?
You need to make the guide yourself. We find a regular profile, you can take the rule, any smooth slats, the main thing is that its geometry is smooth.
We measure the distance from the saw blade to the edge of your chipboard blank. We attach the guide to the workpiece using any clamp and begin cutting.
The main thing in the process is to constantly press the saw against the guide. That is, your hand should always guide the saw towards the homemade tire.
After cutting, you will get an almost perfect cut, the cut line is barely visible. We performed the cut very efficiently, the cut itself is clean, no side marks are visible on it. With the exception of a small pile on the back side of the workpiece.
Where did this lint come from, since we were working with a guide (tire)?
The purchased cutting bar has a special plastic protective tape. This tape prevents the pile from rising and the saw cuts it. In this case, we didn’t have this tape, so we got this lint on the surface.
What to do with the pile in this case?
There are two options:
1. Take regular masking tape. It is glued to the place of the cut, markings are made on it and sawed together with masking tape. The tape holds the ingrown in place and when cutting we get everything clean.
2. Just drive the saw blade more slowly. That is, if you do the same thing with a slower feed, then there will be much fewer chips.
Technique 2. “Reverse cut.”
The first pass is performed in an unusual manner - in reverse. That is, the circular saw rotates as the workpiece is fed. We set the minimum cutting depth, turn on the saw and move backwards rather than forwards.
If you have a regular saw, then simply fix the saw with minimal overhang beyond the base. The point of the first pass is that the blade, moving along the guide, only catches our workpiece. We need a small groove on the chipboard.
Having made the first - trimming cut - you will make sure that there are no chips with such a feed (backwards). The surface is perfect!
Now we will set the saw to full depth and cut the workpiece along this groove with a regular cut - forward feed. We will get two cuts per workpiece. No wave cuts, arson, nothing - perfect quality!
Video - how to saw off material (chipboard, plywood) without chipping
Any home craftsman sooner or later is faced with the need to cut chipboard. This could be making furniture with your own hands or covering walls. MDF panels or chipboard. As you know, sawing chipboard is not difficult, but making an even cut without chips is not an easy task.
Do it yourself or order it?
A custom cut will be smoother
High-quality sawing of chipboard is difficult to do manually due to the large size of the sheets. The dimensions of a standard slab are 2440x1200, and this is not the limit. However, if you work with chipboard or MDF quite often, it makes sense to get an expensive tool and work for your own pleasure. If you only need to cut a few sheets, you can go two ways:
- Cut the slabs yourself using available hand tools;
- Order cutting of chipboard in a specialized workshop.
What to choose is up to you, and we will consider each of these options.
Cutting panels at home
Sawing by hand chipboard sheet or laminated chipboard is quite possible. True, in this case you are unlikely to be able to avoid the appearance of chips and burrs, but you can try to reduce their number and size.
There are several rules that should be followed when cutting chipboard panels:
- Sheets must be cut on a flat, hard surface. For sawing large panels, you can adapt two large tables (their height should be the same!);
- in order to prevent chipping, stick adhesive tape or good masking tape along the cut line, which will hold the edges of the laminated layer;
- For sawing with a hand saw, select a blade with a grinding tooth. The saw teeth should be sharpened well. You need to drive the saw with slight pressure, at an acute angle to the surface, constantly monitoring its position;
- To cut chipboards and laminated chipboards using a jigsaw, the cut line should be scratched or even cut through. It's best to take advantage sharp knife to cut through a durable layer of laminate;
- install a file with fine reverse teeth;
- select maximum speed the jigsaw is running, turn off the “pendulum”;
- fasten an even strip along the cut line and move the jigsaw strictly along it;
- The jigsaw should be pressed firmly against the surface being cut.
All these recommendations help to correctly saw and cut chipboard, but chipping, nevertheless, cannot be completely avoided. Therefore, if it is so important to get a perfectly smooth, even cut line, without chips or saw marks, you should contact specialized workshops where they will cut out any shape from a sheet of chipboard for a reasonable fee.
Precision and quality
Accurate cutting is the key to success
Format cutting machines for sawing laminated chipboards and chipboards have high quality cutting, which allows you to reduce subsequent costs for processing cuts (grinding, removing chips and burrs, and so on). That is why such machines can be used to cut any complexity and configuration, which means almost inexhaustible possibilities in furniture production. Fantasy children's furniture, comfortable tabletops computer desks, curly through carved decorations in the doors kitchen facades– all this is possible using machines.
There are two types of panel cutting machines:
- vertical, which are a strong, rigid, vibration-resistant welded bed (frame), installed vertically with a backward deviation of 50°, with guides located above and below, along which the saw beam moves. It is a bracket for the saw unit, which moves up and down along the beam, and also rotates 90°, which allows you to make both vertical and horizontal cuts. The cutting precision is amazing. A special scoring unit is used for sawing laminated chipboard, as well as hard, corrugated or porous boards. The rotation speed of the saw reaches 15 thousand revolutions per minute;
- horizontal, consisting of a table for the stove, a carriage for moving the saw along the saw mechanism and the saw mechanism itself, consisting of one or two cutting units. The cutting units themselves are equipped with a main and scoring saw. The principle of operation is simple: the main saw deeply cuts through the chipboard, and the scoring saw accurately and clearly cuts the bottom edge (veneer or laminated surface). The saw unit can also be tilted up to 45°.
The miter saw is a “domesticated” and greatly reduced copy of the horizontal saw. It will not be possible to cut a wide sheet of chipboard or laminated chipboard on it, but it can handle small parts quite well.
We cut other types of panels
Cutting MDF differs from cutting chipboard panels. The high density of the material quickly dulls the saw teeth, so it often has to be sharpened or completely replaced. Unfinished MDF can be cut using a regular machine, but laminated board requires a machine with an additional bottom saw. This is especially important when cutting slabs with a double-sided finish.
Fiberboard can be cut at home using an electric or manual jigsaw. Of course, the file must be sharp, with small tooth, the jigsaw must be set to maximum speed. Install the fiberboard horizontally on a support that should not interfere with sawing (between two tables or chairs, for example), secure it with clamps if necessary.
The electric jigsaw should be held with both hands, pressed firmly against the surface, and moved smoothly, strictly along the marking line, without jerking or pressing. The same applies to working with a hand jigsaw.
In cases where it is necessary to cut many sheets of material, it is more convenient to contact a specialized company. This will save you time and effort.
Video on cutting chipboard using a circular saw
It is not always easy to cut chipboard beautifully and without chips. See how to do it correctly:
IN this material We will touch upon such a pressing question for garage craftsmen who deal with furniture made from chipboard, how to cut chipboard without chipping. In fact, the question is quite topical, because professional equipment (format cutting machine) on which cutting is carried out in furniture workshops, costs about a million rubles, which is not affordable for everyone, and the area for its placement should be slightly larger than the standard 18 square meters. meters. A special feature of such machines is the presence of two saw blades(the first small trim and the second main one, the next one exactly after it). What can replace such a machine in an amateur workshop?
The most optimal replacement, in my opinion, is submersible a circular saw complete with guide rail. That's what we'll talk about today.
Personally, I use an Elitech plunge-cut saw - this is a domestic budget model, which, despite its simplicity, allows you to achieve good results.
Professional models (for example, Festool saws, they cut even better, but also cost 5 times more).
So, how is a plunge-cut circular saw different from a regular one? Firstly, with its spring-loaded working part with a depth limiter. Due to this, it is very easy to set and change the depth of cut; in addition, the “head” returns to its original position on its own without operator pressure. Secondly, there are mandatory grooves on the sole for integration with the guide rail. Thirdly, there is a rigid design that eliminates backlash (the cut passes strictly in one place).
The tire itself is equipped with an anti-splinter tape (as a rule, it is a tape made of hard rubber - black stripe on the right)
The tape presses the laminate, preventing its pieces from tearing off at the points where the teeth of the saw blade exit. The tire also has grooves for fixing to workpieces with clamps and tapes for easier sliding (red stripes).
By the way, the Festool saw is equipped with anti-splinter inserts on the side opposite the tire, which makes the cut clean on both sides of the blade.
The tire itself is rigidly attached to the workpiece and does not move. Fixation is carried out with special clamps (their shape is somewhat different from standard F-shaped ones. The price, by the way, too).
All these features allow you to cut in “two passes”. The first one does not cut deep the top layer of the laminate. The second is through sawing to the full depth. At the same time, there is no longer any material at the point where the tooth emerges from the workpiece, so there is nothing to pull out, and accordingly, chips do not form. This is all in theory. Let's look at how this is all done in practice.
The markup is quite traditional. Using a tape measure, mark the start and end points of the cut (you can use a carpenter's square).
We draw a marking line connecting these risks.
We set the guide bar along the line so that the edge of the anti-splinter tape aligns with the markings.
Please note that the tire lies on the part that should remain (there will be no chips on it - the tape on the tire will help). On a suspended piece, they are possible due to the absence of an insert on the saw itself.
You can, of course, cut by laying laminated chipboard sheet on a workbench, but this damages the surface of the workbench and you need to use replacement tabletops (I don’t do this, although with large pieces this may be the only correct method).
The tire is attached to the workpiece with a pair of F-shaped clamps inserted into special grooves on the tire.
We take the saw in our hands and set the depth regulator to 11-12 mm, which corresponds to 5-6 mm of cutting depth (the bar itself “eats” about 5 mm).
We place the saw on the bar, aligning the grooves on the sole with the protrusions on the bar.
We make the first shallow cut. The photo shows that there are a small number of chips on the part of the workpiece not covered with tape.
And one more photo from a different angle.
And a close-up
We change the depth to 35-40 mm and make a second through cut without changing the position of the tire.
Having removed the tire, we see a fairly neat cut that does not require additional processing.
I took a separate photo of the part after removing the tire from above
And from the bottom side.
By the way, the cut from below is traditionally cleaner, because in this place the teeth of the disk only cut into the material, they tear it out at the exit.
Let me also note one important fact. Use sharp discs when working. The disk used in this lesson is already quite tired and requires editing. I think that with a zero disk there would be no chips at all.
In addition to the sharpness of the teeth, the quality of the cut is greatly influenced by the material being cut. There are thornier coatings and stronger coatings. IN in this example 16 mm Lamarty chipboard boards were used - one of the best domestic boards. Egger or Kronospan laminated chipboards are much more susceptible to chipping, and I most likely would not have achieved such a result with this disk.
All these points come with experience, all that’s left is to invest in the purchase of this device.
In principle, you can cut in “two passes” with ordinary circular saws with homemade guide rails, the main thing is that the sole does not dangle, but doing this is less convenient than using plunge-cut saws, primarily due to the inconvenience of rearranging the sawing depth.
