How do you cut laminates with a TS?

[Timtool]

I'm still new to my TS55R which is my first plunge saw, and today i did some tests to see how it handled cutting 19mm melamine panels.
The goal was to see the quality of the cut, wether it was acceptable or not.

-First i cut a strip with the standard 48T blade, cut was clean on rail side, and chipped on the exterior side. The bottom was chipped on both sides.

-Second i cut a strip with the anti splinter guard mounted on the saw, cut was clean on both sides of the top, and chipped on the bottom side.

-Third i cut in two passes, the first pass 3mm deep pulling the saw backwards like a scoring blade, and then cutting again normally
this gave an almost laser cut finish on both top sides, and chipped again on the bottom

I tried several methods to get a clean bottom side, cutting on a sacricial board, above empty space, cutting as deep as the material or too deep,nothing gave an acceptable finish.
My question is, how do you guys do it? Use a special blade or is the TS simply incapable of making acceptable laminate cuts?

 

[tjbnwi]

I make my cuts on 2" foam. Works well with veneers, not sure how it will work with laminates.

Tom

 

[tiralie]

My question is, how do you guys do it? Use a special blade or is the TS simply incapable of making acceptable laminate cuts?

This topic has been covered extensively on the FOG. Most recently here:
Cherry melamine or prefinished plywood

and here setting-toe-in

Hope that works for you.
Tim

 

[RDMuller]

Bottom line is this:  there are 2 types of melamine board out there.  Cold fused sold at most big-box stores is not much more than paint on particle board and really should not be called melamine (junk would be a good alternate term).    Thermal fused melamine that is out in the professional arena is excellent material that will not chip with Festool equipment.  Seep the previous discussion for an excellent overview of this

 

[KorDes]

I've found setting the blade at about 5-10mm deeper than the thickness of the material leaves satisfactory results on both top and bottom faces.

 

[Timtool]

Thanks for the tip KorDes, though i think i tried that with no luck.
What i don't understand is why plunge saws can't seem to handle "cheap" particle board melamine, while my panelsaw can cut them chipless with a scoring blade.
FYI the scoring blade prevents chips on the side where the blade cuts outwards (bottom side on a table saw, top side on a plunge saw. the side where the blade cuts inwards is always clean on a table saw, while it's chipped on a plunge saw.

 

[mikeneron]

I've found setting the blade at about 5-10mm deeper than the thickness of the material leaves satisfactory results on both top and bottom faces.

I've had much better results doing this...I set mine about 10mm deeper than the thickness.  Just put the guide rail on the very edge of the material to be cut and plunge the saw down until the smooth part of the blade is in line with the bottom of the material (ie. all the teeth are actually below the material).  For example: 3/4" material I set the depth guide to 34.  I also always make a scoring cut first with the depth guide set to 6.

You might want to also try the laminate blade (496309). 

 

[Wooden Skye]

I don't like melamine, but on my table saw and the one time I tried using my TS55, I put tape over my cut line front and back and still go slow with the feed rate and seems to work well for me.

 

[KorDes]

Thanks for the tip KorDes, though i think i tried that with no luck.
What i don't understand is why plunge saws can't seem to handle "cheap" particle board melamine, while my panelsaw can cut them chipless with a scoring blade.
FYI the scoring blade prevents chips on the side where the blade cuts outwards (bottom side on a table saw, top side on a plunge saw. the side where the blade cuts inwards is always clean on a table saw, while it's chipped on a plunge saw.

Well the advantage your panel saw has over the festool plungesaw is the scoring blade. Without the scoring blade, the melamine boards would likely chip on the under side. (unless you use a good quality triple chip hollow face blade). I dont know the quality of the melamine boards over there are, but I get satisfactory results with our boards cutting them as described above. I can go from cutting with the plungesaw, straight to edgebanding.

have you tried cutting at maximum plunge depth? Surely at that depth it would eliminate chipping on the inwards side.

 

[knight joinery]

Odd none of you have mentioned trying a triple chip blade, or alternatively a high bevel, we use triple chips in our panel saw and we get no breakout with no scoring unit.

 

[tbellemare]

The Festool Solid Surface / Laminate Blades are triple chip ground.

Tom