Best way to drill holes in melamine

[Aegwyn11]

Guys,

I'm making some zero clearance inserts for my table saw...I'm using the phenolic 'kit' from Rockler. Its less of a kit and more just a couple of 3/8" pieces of solid phenolic with a thin blue laminate on both sides, which is fine. Used my trusty OF1400 and CMT flush trim bit to copy my stock insert to them....the more I use the 1400 the more I love it After that I used some tape on the edges to get the fit snug so the inserts don't move around at all in the throat.

SOOOOOO, that brings me to present. I need to drill some holes for leveling screws. I did this on the first one, and the blue stuff chipped away pretty bad. This stuff seems to be acting like the laminate on melamine, hence the title of the thread. Any suggestions on the best way to get these holes bored so that I don't get a lot of chipout?

 

[peter halle]

How about putting a scrap of clear plexiglass on top and then clamp the two pieces together.  You should be able to see your marks and drill thru both?

Peter

 

[score0matic]

what size hole do you need?

If it is a true 1/4'  use a carbide up sprial bit and your router  if not you can always campher the edge with a slightly larger bit Cleaning up the chip
Craig

 

[lordinteriors]

i find that using forstners on melamine works a treat whethere you can get a small enough bit

lee

 

[Aegwyn11]

I thought about using my 1/4" spiral bit, but I had to return it (had a chip on the cutting surface) and have been waiting for a replacement and didn't want to wait to complete this little project. Thats a different story, but suffice it to say I go to the other dealer in town for my needs now...

I ended up using a couple of scrap pieces of plywood, with the phenolic sandwiched in between (similar to the plexi idea...just didn't have any plexi easily available). I put double sided tape on both sides of the phenolic where the holes would be, then assembled the sandwich and drilled. Worked pretty good....almost no tearout at all. That ZCI turned out very good...much better than the first one where the holes were drilled without anything to prevent tearout.