Any home craftsman sooner or later is faced with the need to cut chipboard. It can be making furniture with your own hands or wall cladding. MDF panels or chipboard. As you know, it is not difficult to cut chipboard, but making the cut even and without chips is not an easy task.
Do it yourself or order?
Custom cut will be smoother
High-quality sawing of chipboard is difficult to do manually due to big size sheets. Dimensions (edit) standard plate 2440 × 1200, and this is not the limit. However, if you quite often work with chipboard or MDF, 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 in two ways:
- Cut the slabs yourself using the available hand tool;
- To order sawing chipboard in a specialized workshop.
What to choose is up to you, and we will consider each of these options.
Cutting panels at home
It is quite possible to cut a sheet of chipboard or chipboard by hand. 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:
- cutting sheets must be done on a flat hard surface... For sawing large panels, two large tables(their height must be the same!);
- in order to exclude the appearance of chips, stick adhesive tape or good masking tape along the cutting line, which will hold the edges of the laminated layer;
- for sawing with hand saw pick up a blade with a grinding tooth. Saw teeth should be well sharpened. You need to drive the saw with slight pressure, under acute angle to the surface, constantly monitoring its position;
- for cutting chipboard and chipboard boards with a jigsaw, the saw line should be scratched or even cut through. Best to take advantage of sharp knife to cut through a durable layer of laminate;
- install a file with a fine reverse tooth;
- choose maximum speed jigsaw work, turn off the "pendulum";
- fasten a flat rail along the saw cut line and move the jigsaw strictly along it;
- the jigsaw should be firmly pressed against the surface to be sawn.
All these recommendations help to properly saw and cut the chipboard, but chips, nevertheless, cannot be completely avoided. Therefore, if it is so important to get perfectly smooth, straight line cut, without chips and saw marks, you should contact specialized workshops, where any figure will be cut out of a chipboard sheet for you for a reasonable fee.
Precision and quality
Precise cutting is the key to success
Panel saw machines for sawing chipboard and chipboard have high quality cutting, which allows you to reduce the subsequent costs of processing sections (grinding, removing chips and burrs, and so on). That is why on such machines it is possible to cut any complexity and configuration, which means almost inexhaustible possibilities in the production of furniture. Fancy children's furniture, comfortable tabletops computer tables, curly through carved decorations in the doors kitchen facades- all this is possible when using machine tools.
There are two types of panel cutting machines:
- vertical, representing a strong rigid vibration-resistant welded bed (frame), installed vertically with a backward deflection 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 precision of the cut is amazing. For sawing laminated chipboard, as well as hard, corrugated or porous boards, a special scoring unit is used. The saw rotation frequency reaches 15 thousand revolutions per minute;
- horizontal, consisting of a table for a plate, carriages for moving the saw along the sawing mechanism and the sawing mechanism itself, consisting of one or two cutting units. The cutting units themselves are equipped with a main saw and a scoring saw. The principle of operation is simple: the main saw cuts deeply into the chipboard, and the scoring saw accurately and precisely 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 heavily scaled-down copy of a horizontal saw. It will not be possible to cut a wide sheet of chipboard or chipboard on it, but with small details she can handle it perfectly.
We saw other types of panels
Cutting MDF is different from cutting chipboard panels. The high density of the material quickly dulls the saw teeth, so it often has to be sharpened or completely changed. You can cut unfinished MDF on a conventional machine, but laminated board requires a machine with an additional bottom saw. This is especially important when sawing slabs with a double-sided finish.
Fibreboard can be cut at home using an electric or hand jigsaw... Of course, the file must be sharp, with a fine tooth; the maximum speed must be set on the jigsaw. Install the fiberboard horizontally on a support that should not interfere with sawing (between two tables or chairs, for example), secure, if necessary, with clamps.
The electric jigsaw should be held with two hands, pressing firmly to the surface, move smoothly, strictly along the line of the marking, without jerking or pressing. The same applies to working with a hand jigsaw.
In the case when it is necessary to cut a lot of sheets of material, it is more convenient to contact specialized firm... This will save you time and effort.
Video on sawing chipboard using a circular saw
It is not always easy to cut a chipboard beautifully and without chips. See how to do it right:
Chipboard is a particle board, a common material. Currently, it is widely used in the production of furniture, office and cabinet furniture, wardrobes, partitions, countertops, etc.
The main advantages of this material: affordability, ease of use, good thermal insulation properties, high strength, material homogeneity (no voids, cracks) Thanks to special additives, it becomes resistant to moisture, open fire, fungi.
Chipboard can be sawed, planed, milled, hammered into nails or screws, drilled, cut out. From it you can make various parts of almost any shape. Application possible different ways: laminate, paint, veneer, plastic or paper. Mostly the material is used indoors. It is not suitable for outdoor work, after all, this is a tree. Chipboard covers the walls, decorates residential and industrial premises... But with all the advantages, there is one problem - chips that occur when cutting. Here we will discover how to avoid this problem and share some tips.
Preparation for work
Conditions
It must be remembered that for quality work several conditions must be met.
- Install the hob correctly. The surface must be flat, stable, without drops. The chipboard plate must be fixed so that it does not "slide out" during operation.
- The tool must be in good working order.
- Need to cut Chipboard plate only with a fine-toothed saw (this is important for coated boards, since a fine-toothed saw does not chip the material).
- It is best to stick masking tape on the cutting line.
- It is necessary to strictly follow safety precautions.
Compliance with all of the above conditions will guarantee good results from the work done.
Master Tips
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Before punching a hole in concrete wall, secure a piece of paper just below. Dust and concrete debris will not fly around the room.
"To cut the pipe exactly at right angles, we advise you to do this. Take a straight strip of paper and screw it onto the pipe along the sawing line. The plane passing through the edge of the paper will be strictly perpendicular to the axis of the pipe."
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"It is known how difficult it is to hang a door working alone. But just shorten the lower pin by 2-3 mm and it will become much easier to work."
"A very strong, non-shrinking and sufficiently waterproof putty is obtained from bustilate mixed with any powder - chalk, gypsum, cement, sawdust, etc."
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How to cut chipboard without chips
So, I collected a sufficient amount of material and decided to roll out another analytical note. This time the topic is sawing chipboard without chips .
There is a fairly fair opinion that it is possible to cleanly saw chipboard only on professional equipment(that is, a panel saw).
The whole highlight of this machine is that it has two saw blades located strictly on the same axis. The first cuts the chipboard, the second cuts it through.
The cost of this unit is about 700,000 - 1,000,000 rubles (of course, there are more expensive ones))). NOT VERY ACCEPTABLE FOR THE AMATEUR.
Of course, if you decide to make a wardrobe with your own hands. then it is better to order a sheet cut (five square meters piece) in the shop, and then calmly assemble it. BUT WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE STUFFED IN THE CALCULATIONS AND YOU NEED TO CUT A PIECE. I don’t want to drag myself back to the shop, but we have to cut it.
This article aims to answer this question. An overview of the options will go from simple to complex. Unfortunately, not all methods will be illustrated (I ask you to forgive me in advance), I will try to compensate for this shortcoming with the text ????
Method 1 - Scratch
The old-fashioned way. Previously used for sawing Soviet laminated chipboard covered with a thick layer of varnish. Now it is rarely used. With it, along the ruler, we scratch with an awl or a simple nail a marking line for the thickness of the decorative coating.
After that, we saw along the line, trying to ensure that the edges of the saw teeth hit exactly the scratch and not a step past. You can saw with both a jigsaw and a hand saw.
In principle, in the photo on the right, you can see that all the chips remained on the piece without a scratch, and they did not go beyond the scratched line.
Detailed tutorial on this method 
The cut is significantly cleaner than when sawing without a scratch, but chipping occurs. It is difficult to keep the instrument in line. So slow.
Cuts of acceptable quality, short in length, can be carried out with a simple jigsaw. To do this, several conditions must be met. 
First, the file must be with minimum size teeth (that is, for metal) and new. In this case, on one side (where the teeth enter the material), the cut will be practically clean. On the opposite side, there will be chips, but relatively little.
Secondly, the tool must be fed smoothly, without pressure. Turns are not set to maximum (slightly above average.
The disadvantage of this method is that it is quite difficult to withstand the strict straightness of the cut, as well as the presence of a small number of chips.
Method 3 - circular saw
To work with circulars, we need a "fine" saw blade (again, with a fine tooth). Circular saws are more convenient than long straight cuts with a jigsaw. But at the same time, much more chips are formed (the side where the teeth cut into the material (top), as a rule, is clean. Chips off pieces from the opposite side (bottom)).
You can cut like a free-sawing saw (it is quite difficult to lead exactly along the line). It is difficult to cut several identical parts - a lot of hassle with the markup. 
So it is with a saw fixed in the table. When using guides, it is much more convenient to cut. Both hands are free. You can use a guide, which will increase the accuracy of the cut and allow you to stamp the same parts.
Even with a clean disc, there will be a lot of chips on one side.
Method 4 - Sawing with undercut
This is a modification of working with circular saw... Ideally, it will require a plunge-cut saw. but, in principle, you can do with the usual circular. For work, we need a ruler (tire), which is fixed on the workpiece with clamps. It can be purchased or homemade (in the photo there is a simple circular with a homemade tire). 
The whole trick is to, by analogy with a panel saw, make two cuts strictly along one line.
The cut on the tire (long ruler) will help us with this. The tire is placed along the marking line, after which we first make the first cut, undercutting the laminate, with a depth of about 6-10 mm. In this case, the teeth run almost parallel to the surface of the laminate, without pulling out pieces of it. 
If you enlarge the photo, you get something like this
The second cut is through. At the same time, as we remember, chips are not formed at the point of entry of the tooth into the material. And at the exit point, the laminate has already been cut and there is nothing to prick.
Not a bad way to trim misplaced parts, but you can't cut an entire cabinet that way. Chips, of course, are present, but in an amount that is quite comparable with the formatter (he, too, secretly, leaves a small number of small chips). A lot of hassle with the markup. Only straight cuts can be made.
Provides the cleanest edge of the workpiece, the quality does not differ at all from the format tool, often even better.
With it, we first saw the workpiece with a jigsaw, retreating from the marking line by 2-3 mm, and then we align the line according to the template (I usually use the second piece of chipboard, sawn on a formatter, suitable size). The cutter must be copying, that is, with a bearing. 
Very clean cut. Possibility of holding curved cuts, that is, making the set radius parts... including several exactly the same. Cons - a lot of trouble: the need for accurate marking, preliminary filing of workpieces, setting a template or tire under the router, that is, it is not very suitable for mass use.
http://ruki-zolotye.ru
The furniture in the store is beautiful and attractive. Road. And it does not always turn out to be exactly the very desired addition to the interior, as it was drawn in, in earnest, imagination.
Another thing is custom-made furniture. The master came (at least they call themselves that), measured everything, asked everything, appreciated everything, left to fulfill the order. Sometimes for a long time. Less often - not quite what was required. But the price for custom-made furniture is often even higher than for its counterpart, which languishes in the store.
Guided by such considerations, the heads of Russian families with average incomes often think about the fact that it would be nice to acquire the skills of the legendary Pope Carlo and sculpt masterpieces of furniture architecture right at the place of their future residence. That is, at home.
Starting, as a rule, with "light infantry" - stools, bedside tables, stands - simple hacksaw and ax workers inevitably face one problem. Her name is Smooth sawing of a chipboard. Making reciprocating movements with the same hacksaw, or (worse) driving a vibrating jigsaw along the drawn marking line, they get anything but an even cut of the material. Well, maybe even. But this is a rare rarity.
But for cabinet furniture, geometrically flawless ends wooden slabs are, one might say, critical. This is the quality of the fit of the elements with each other, and appearance decor and so on.
By what means did our more skillful ancestors achieve this level of processing?
When working with a hacksaw, the tool itself is first of all important: its choice depends on the material being processed, its qualities and properties. For the chipboard that is now widespread, it is highly desirable to use a hacksaw with small teeth, divorced by half the thickness of the blade. A larger spread will result in a wide kerf and unwanted chips; narrow - jammed the tool in chipboard sheet leading to mild psychosis. In addition, if the hacksaw is armed with hardened teeth, this only goes to her "plus" - and the setting is maintained better, and the sharpening is lost more slowly. It is important.
Nevertheless, cutting long cuts with such a hacksaw is fraught with significant fatigue, since small and frequent "teeth" are quickly clogged with wood dust and are no longer able to effectively perform their functions in this state. But still, at home, using a tool with just such parameters is most preferable. The sawing itself should be done at the most acute angle. cutting edge hacksaws to the board being sawn. It is less tiring, and besides, it gives the desired smooth cut.
Of the electrified devices in this area, such persons are known as electric jigsaw and a miter saw.
The first is characterized by a rather riotous nature with uncontrolled guidance of it along the procurement. The methods for restricting his freedom here are quite simple and unpretentious. These are, first of all:
- guide - even and straight, preferably a metal ruler, secured with clamps along the marking line. Resting against it with the sole, the tool almost ideally goes its distance, without "blockages" and chips.
- the file itself - its parameters, this is the rigidity and purpose - for a simple chipboard - with small teeth directed upward and without setting, for a tree - large divorced teeth, predatory sticking out in different sides from the plane of the canvas. But about the first ones it should be remembered that, after about a meter of cut, their canvas will inevitably heat up, lose its qualities and "jerk" to the side. This almost always happens 100% inevitably;
- adhesive tape glued from the side of the exit of the teeth to the surface. Better yet, both. You never know ... In these places and chips appear. However, it is not out of place to monitor the strength of the adhesive tape itself to the surface to be treated: if it is subsequently removed, it is able to heap characteristic flaws, even worse than a file;
- two parallel cuts with a carpenter's knife on both sides of the marking line for the entire length of the intended cut. It also saves from chips, and is especially true for laminated chipboard sheets.
After sawing, you can finalize the cut with a router or grinder, however, firstly, this is due to the circumstances, and secondly, too many tools are required for a cabinet that will appear in life once and for many years.
About miter saw we can only say one thing: it is necessary.
Today we will tell you what affects the quality of sawing, how to cut the chipboard smoothly and cleanly, and also how you can cut with a rail and without a guide using a conventional circular saw.
We will show on the example of a hand-held circular saw, but this does not affect the cutting techniques in any way, the difference is only in insignificant details. You can get a similar quality of cut on a cheaper tool if you follow our advice.
What affects the quality of the chipboard cut?
In this case, we will cut chipboard, this is the most capricious material for sawing, because it has longitudinal and transverse layers, a rather delicate and thin veneer. But on the other hand, it has a tough 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 resistant, because the glue in its properties is very close to glass and quickly blunts the tool itself. Therefore, in the process of cutting chipboard, you need to choose sufficiently good discs to cut them without losing 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 seizures, because it is practically impossible to keep the saw straight in the cut by hand.
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 is able to guide its position in the cut. Accordingly, as soon as it changes its geometry, the rear teeth begin to push against the chipboard workpiece and leave traces on it.
It is important to have the workpiece face down. Why?
The disc rotates from the bottom up, it cuts the pile of the workpiece up to the base. Thus, from below, on front side, we always have a clean surface. Problems begin to form at the top, where the teeth come out of the workpiece. This is how explosions, chips, pile are obtained.
How can they be minimized, or avoided altogether? There are several simple tricks and we will tell you about them now.
Reception 1. Cut along the guide
We install a guide (tire) on the workpiece, set the cutting depth and perform the cut. As you can see for yourself, even on outside of our chipboard blanks, there are no chips, no explosions. The cut itself is even without signs of scoring or side waves. Why such difference?
What is the merit of the guide?
When we saw with a disc, we inevitably wiggle the saw, resulting in the so-called "iron motion". That is, when we move our hand, we all the time move the saw to the right, to the left. The guide, which has a rigid edging, avoids 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 a perfect line parallel to the guide.
What if I don't have a circular saw and guide?
You need to make the guide yourself. We find an ordinary profile, you can take the rule, any even rail, the main thing is that its geometry is even.
We measure the distance from the saw blade to the edge of your chipboard workpiece. We attach the guide to the workpiece with any clamp and start 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 cutting line is barely visible. We made a very high quality cut, the cut itself is clean, no side marks are visible on it. Except for a small pile on the back of the workpiece.
Where did this pile come from, because we worked with a guide (tire)?
There is a special plastic protective tape on the purchased cutting bar. This tape prevents the pile from rising and the saw cuts it. In this case, we did not have this tape, so we got this pile on the surface.
What to do with the pile in this case?
There are two options:
1. Take ordinary masking tape. It is glued to the place of the cut along it, marking is made and sawn together with masking tape... The scotch tape keeps the root in place and when we cut it, we get everything clean.
2. Just drive the saw blade more slowly. That is, if you do the same with a slower feed, then there will be much less chips.
Reception 2. "Reverse cut".
The first pass is performed in an unusual manner - in reverse. That is, the circular saw rotates in the direction of feeding the workpiece. We set the minimum cutting depth, turn on the saw and move not forward, but backward.
If you have regular saw, then simply fix the saw with a minimum overhang. The point of the first pass is that the blade, moving along the guide, only clings to our workpiece. We need a small groove on the chipboard.
Having made the first undercut cut, you will make sure that there are no chips at such a feed (back). 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 have two cuts per piece. No gouging waves, arson, nothing - perfect quality!
Video - how to saw off material (chipboard, plywood) without chips