Scoring a cut on plywood, particle board, etc.

[P2P]

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Neither would I, but a panel saw runs the scorer backwards so you still feed the same way.
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Agreed, but panel saws with scoring are designed to do this.  A regular table saw is not!

 

[PaulMarcel]

When I've had to cut cold-pressed Melamine (the Home Depot stuff), I've made a scoring pass with the blade about 0.5mm into the surface. You're using the "ATB" wing cutters to score both sides of the cut. Then drop the blade full depth for the cut. The guide rail splinter guard will protect the keeper side while the off-cut splinter guard will protect (wait for it) the off-cut. Applying blue tape over the cutline beforehand can also help a lot. I admit I can be overly cautious when cutting the stuff.

 

[Tom the Remodeler]

A note on the Mafell MT55 scoring function:

— The scoring function is intended to be used with the 162mm blade
— When using the scoring function, a special eccentric washer moves the blade 0.1mm closer to the guide rail.
— Once a panel is cut in the above manner there will be a 0.1mm difference from the top of the panel to the bottom. In my experience, this is functionally a non-factor, and disappears when edge banding is applied
— The MT55 scoring function works very well. Not perfect, but the best I’ve come across in terms of convenience and efficiency. This performance comes at a nontrivial cost....

 

[emlclcy]

I was thinking about this backwards scoring cut, but I can not imagine how it has any bearing on the quality of the cut. You see, the blade moves at 5200 RPM, this is 87 rotations per second. This movement is so incredibly fast, that your own movement of the saw back or forth has no influence whatsoever.

It makes a difference. Forward - teeth cutting up, backward - teeth cutting down (climb cut). Not sure it matters quality wise, since the angle of attack is so shallow.
On saws equipped with scoring blade they run it in reverse to the main blade.

on a metal milling machine the forward cut leave a poor finish, on the reverse or climb cut just taking 0.2mm you get a perfect finish with a cutter doing 1500rpm

 

[Svar]

A note on the Mafell MT55 scoring function:
— The scoring function is intended to be used with the 162mm blade

The offset mechanism engages at about 5 to 6 mm depth on rail. It will work nearly the same with 160mm blade.