Boral TruExterior

[tjbnwi]

all fabricated with Festools.

CMS with TS 75 and router insert.

Kapex

Domino

Tom

 

[Goneshootin88]

Looks great as always. How do you like working with the Boral vs PVC?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[tjbnwi]

Looks great as always. How do you like working with the Boral vs PVC?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks.

Prefer Boral. Very stable with temperature changes, holds paint well, dust is much easier to contain. Downside it is brittle, once installed not really an issue.

Tom

 

[Kev]

Hmmm .. so you like our Boral products hmm? [big grin]

 

[gunnyr]

I like boral ok except, as you say, its brittle.  It doesn't taste very good either  [big grin]

What blade did you use in your TS75?

 

[tjbnwi]

Hmmm .. so you like our Boral products hmm? [big grin]

Yep, very stable with temp changes, holds paint well, can be painted dark colors.

Easier to control the dust than PVC dust.

Tom

 

[tjbnwi]

I like boral ok except, as you say, its brittle.  It doesn't taste very good either  [big grin]

What blade did you use in your TS75?

I shot a few videos of the process. I was going to edit them together---who am I kidding that will never happen.

Here is a link to the first video, the other 3 are on my channel also.


Tom

 

[Naildrivingman]

You are far more daring than I. I would never subject any quality tool to this product. I personally have ruined two SCMS cutting this product. Additionally, any cutters used on this product are dull to wood after only a few feet of cutting.

 

[tjbnwi]

You are far more daring than I. I would never subject any quality tool to this product. I personally have ruined two SCMS cutting this product. Additionally, any cutters used on this product are dull to wood after only a few feet of cutting.

The dust from Boral is far less abrasive than the solid surface material I work with. All done with the Festool system.

Did you have dust extraction on the SCMS? If not you, why not.

The router bit runs on wood just fine after 400 feet of shaping the Boral. The Domino 5mm bit shows no ill affects. The Forman bit still works well. I had to run a few rips with the TS-55, that blade was then used on wood.

I've run thousands of feet of fiber cement with my Festools prior to the Boral. They're holding up just fine. If you check the owners manual you'll see fiber cement is a product they list the tools to work with.

I would not expect cheep tools to hold up, quality tools should have no issues working with this product. Sometimes cheep is just to expensive for me.

Someone else much more respected in this field agrees, I found this after I posted my videos to YouTube.


As I stated in my first video, how you use the tools is up to you.

My out look on tools---they're tools choose wisely and use them, I'm definitely not one to baby them.

Tom

 

[Naildrivingman]

I didn't say or suggest that Boral was any more abrasive than solid surface.

SCMS:  10" Makita (x2) completely had to be torn down after 3 months of installing this product.  All dust seals replaced on slides, turntable completely taken apart and washed/relubed and reassembled, motor taken out and completely blown out...basically the saws weren't ruined, but by the time I paid the bill I could have purchased 1.5 new saws.  Neither of these saws have adequate dust collection, I've tried with no luck.

Blades/bits:  Forrest, Freud, CMT, Bosch...none survived to work with wood (without resharpening) after working with this product.  None of these cutters were specifically designed to be used with Boral or other abrasive products...maybe yours were.  Boral states that any cutter for wood can be used with Boral.  This is true only in one direction.  I have not been able to use wood cutters on wood after being used on Boral. In your video you are using a Hardi blade.  That is an excellent choice.

I've seen many "Gurus" shill various products/tools.  Why?  Because they are paid to.  I make it a practice not to follow exclusively the advice of paid promoters.  I may try what they suggest, but ultimately I decide for myself based on my experience.  I've seen too many contradictions from one video to another depending on the product/tool being showcased.

The only cheap tools I buy are ones that are subject to repeated abuse. Demo tools would be an example of tools that I consider disposable. Other than that I buy only Makita, DeWalt, Milwaukee, Hitachi, Festool.  Almost all of my tools are purchased from brick and mortar tool supply stores. 

 

[tjbnwi]

I didn't say or suggest that Boral was any more abrasive than solid surface.

SCMS:  10" Makita (x2) completely had to be torn down after 3 months of installing this product.  All dust seals replaced on slides, turntable completely taken apart and washed/relubed and reassembled, motor taken out and completely blown out...basically the saws weren't ruined, but by the time I paid the bill I could have purchased 1.5 new saws.  Neither of these saws have adequate dust collection, I've tried with no luck.

Blades/bits:  Forrest, Freud, CMT, Bosch...none survived to work with wood (without resharpening) after working with this product.  None of these cutters were specifically designed to be used with Boral or other abrasive products...maybe yours were.  Boral states that any cutter for wood can be used with Boral.  This is true only in one direction.  I have not been able to use wood cutters on wood after being used on Boral. In your video you are using a Hardi blade.  That is an excellent choice.

I've seen many "Gurus" shill various products/tools.  Why?  Because they are paid to.  I make it a practice not to follow exclusively the advice of paid promoters.  I may try what they suggest, but ultimately I decide for myself based on my experience.  I've seen too many contradictions from one video to another depending on the product/tool being showcased.

The only cheap tools I buy are ones that are subject to repeated abuse. Demo tools would be an example of tools that I consider disposable. Other than that I buy only Makita, DeWalt, Milwaukee, Hitachi, Festool.  Almost all of my tools are purchased from brick and mortar tool supply stores.

To start with I'm not a shill, a guru, or in any way compensated for what I post.

The saw blades are PCD, designed for fiber cement. The router bit is carbide and domino bit is just a plain old Domino bit. Next week I'll shoot a video of the router bits running on wood and some Domino plunges.

Festool specifically lists fiber cement and solid surface as products their tools can handle.

Dust collection hooked to the SCMS's? I know someone else who complains about dust from Boral, wont use dust collection or quality tools.

I collected over 45 pounds if dust fabricating the window casing. Thats 45 pounds of dust the tools did not have to deal with.

My Kapex has had no issues when I've cut fiber cement, solid surface or Boral.

Best part of this discussion is others can make a decision based on 2 views of working with the product.

Tom

 

[Naildrivingman]

I didn't say or suggest that Boral was any more abrasive than solid surface.

SCMS:  10" Makita (x2) completely had to be torn down after 3 months of installing this product.  All dust seals replaced on slides, turntable completely taken apart and washed/relubed and reassembled, motor taken out and completely blown out...basically the saws weren't ruined, but by the time I paid the bill I could have purchased 1.5 new saws.  Neither of these saws have adequate dust collection, I've tried with no luck.

Blades/bits:  Forrest, Freud, CMT, Bosch...none survived to work with wood (without resharpening) after working with this product.  None of these cutters were specifically designed to be used with Boral or other abrasive products...maybe yours were.  Boral states that any cutter for wood can be used with Boral.  This is true only in one direction.  I have not been able to use wood cutters on wood after being used on Boral. In your video you are using a Hardi blade.  That is an excellent choice.

I've seen many "Gurus" shill various products/tools.  Why?  Because they are paid to.  I make it a practice not to follow exclusively the advice of paid promoters.  I may try what they suggest, but ultimately I decide for myself based on my experience.  I've seen too many contradictions from one video to another depending on the product/tool being showcased.

The only cheap tools I buy are ones that are subject to repeated abuse. Demo tools would be an example of tools that I consider disposable. Other than that I buy only Makita, DeWalt, Milwaukee, Hitachi, Festool.  Almost all of my tools are purchased from brick and mortar tool supply stores.

To start with I'm not a shill, a guru, or in any way compensated for what I post.

I didn't say you were.  I was referencing the individual in the video you posted.

The saw blades are PCD, designed for fiber cement. The router bit is carbide and domino bit is just a plain old Domino bit. Next week I'll shoot a video of the router bits running on wood and some Domino plunges.

I have used a similar 4 tooth blade for fiber cement, it works great on that.  Just for fun I tried the same blade on wood...I could have cut faster with a blow torch.  The other cutters I used worked great on wood, but once used on Boral, they quickly lost their edge and subsequently could not be used on wood until they were sharpened.  In my experience, any cutter will adequately and cleanly mill Boral regardless of sharpness, but a cutter used on wood must be relatively pristine or the results will be substandard.

Festool specifically lists fiber cement and solid surface as products their tools can handle.

Yes in the main manual, but not the supplemental US manual.  Festool also does not offer a specific fiber cement blade.  Makes me wonder if this provides an "out" for warranty coverage?  You specifically state in your video that the use of the fiber cement blade may void the warranty.  I'm not saying that one couldn't use FT for these products, I'm asking if one should use FT for these products.

Dust collection hooked to the SCMS's? I know someone else who complains about dust from Boral, wont use dust collection or quality tools.

The Makita SCMS I referenced were not well designed for dust collection.  I tried to use my CT 26, but more dust escapes than is collected.  The newer Makita SCMS has better dust collection than my Kapex.

I collected over 45 pounds if dust fabricating the window casing. Thats 45 pounds of dust the tools did not have to deal with.

My Kapex has had no issues when I've cut fiber cement, solid surface or Boral.

Best part of this discussion is others can make a decision based on 2 views of working with the product.

Yes they can

Tom

 

[Cheese]

Thanks for the interesting discussion guys.  [big grin]  I'm serious...

My take-away with just 2 people weighing in is that if a tool wasn't designed specifically to be used with dust extraction, then using it on Boral may compromise its life span. I think that's a pretty straight forward assumption.

What's not so straight forward is the difference in the life span of the tooling. Again, maybe the use of dust extraction is what makes the difference?

[member=4105]tjbnwi[/member] if carbide tooling is not compromised, I'm curious why you chose to use the CMT PCD blade as opposed to the standard Festool carbide blade?
Also, have you used the standard Festool blade on Boral and if so, how does the cut compare to the CMT blade?

I already have the 4 tooth CMT blade for concrete backer board so I'm going to seek out some Boral to experiment with.

[member=64733]Naildrivingman[/member] , did you purchase the Boral locally and if so where?

 

[Naildrivingman]

Boral is available from Scherer Bros Lumber. I'm guessing it's also available from Shaw as well.

In addition to being brittle, the edges are pretty delicate.  I would endorse the product for use where it cannot be touched by people, trees, etc.  to my knowledge, it does hold paint well and I believe it to be an effective rot resistant alternative to wood and wood composites.

Furthermore, I think it is far better than Miratec, I'm just not impressed with what it does to tools that do not have adequate dust collection and I cannot endorse it for use with costly Festool products regardless of FTs dust collection abilities.  What others choose to do is fine with me.  I simply wanted to weigh in with my experience.  If I were to use this product again, I would buy a set of tools dedicated to use with Boral and accept that they will fail prematurely.

 

[tjbnwi]

Thanks for the interesting discussion guys.  [big grin]  I'm serious...

My take-away with just 2 people weighing in is that if a tool wasn't designed specifically to be used with dust extraction, then using it on Boral may compromise its life span. I think that's a pretty straight forward assumption.

What's not so straight forward is the difference in the life span of the tooling. Again, maybe the use of dust extraction is what makes the difference?

[member=4105]tjbnwi[/member] if carbide tooling is not compromised, I'm curious why you chose to use the CMT PCD blade as opposed to the standard Festool carbide blade?
Also, have you used the standard Festool blade on Boral and if so, how does the cut compare to the CMT blade?

I already have the 4 tooth CMT blade for concrete backer board so I'm going to seek out some Boral to experiment with.

[member=64733]Naildrivingman[/member] , did you purchase the Boral locally and if so where?

[member=44099]Cheese[/member]

I choose the CMT blade this time to see how it affected the amount and size of dust. First time I had to rips totaling over 1000 lineal feet. With only 4 teeth, I figured the dust would be coarser. Not sure I could tell the difference. The cut was no where near as smooth as when using Festool blades. I did have to sand any show edges. This Boral sands extremely easily.

The Festool blade I normally use on Boral are the solid surface blades (496309, 496382, 495386). I have multiples of each of these blades in inventory. The tooth geometry may account for the blades holding up better.

I did have to make and additional 128 feet of rip when I was on site. Used the standard blade in the 55, ripped wood afterwards, noticed no difference in the blades performance.

Make sure you break all the edges, square edges damage easily.

I don't recall if Naildrivingman mentioned dust extraction when he is working with Boral. For me it is a must.

Tom

 

[Cheese]

Boral is available from Scherer Bros Lumber. I'm guessing it's also available from Shaw as well.

Thanks...Scherer Bros works for me...just about 20 minutes away.

 

[tjbnwi]

Another thing you'll notice when tooling Boral, there is much less motor load on the tools. Pretty much no load at all.

Tom

 

[Cheese]

Another thing you'll notice when tooling Boral, there is much less motor load on the tools. Pretty much no load at all.

Good to know Tom...also your choice of solid surface blades. It makes sense that the CMT cut wouldn't be as nice as a standard saw blade cut, thanks for confirming.

 

[Brice Burrell]

I've never used Boral before.  I did see this video not all that long ago.  This guy doesn't seem real impressed.  I use PVC, I'll probably stick with that.

 

[JSlovic]

I recently built a home in the SC low country. The exterior is pretty much all various synthetic materials: hardie plank, Azek etc.
We successfully used Boral for flat board and batten and some flat trim areas, the builder and architect were very happy with how it worked.  Irma just blew thru and we haven't seen any dents or crack from flying limbs.
When we quoted it the it was a significantly lower cost than PVC, however when the builder placed the order the distributor/Boral HQ didn't honor their quote and raised the price (~ $3500) Even so it was less than PVC.