Festool Tracksaw blade for melamine sheets

[andrew whicker]

Thoughts?

I have the bigger tracksaw (TS 75)

Thanks much and cheers,

[jack duren]

We used one at the shop for 45 degree laminate corners and worked great.

[andrew whicker]

which blade did you use?

[Jamie Buxton]

You can do the po’ man’s scoring blade trick. You make two passes to do the cut. The first pass is shallow - like an eighth or so. The second pass cuts the remaining thickness.

The teeth in the first pass are cutting along the surface. Each particle is backed by material you haven’t cut yet. And the teeth are not pulling material up and out of the sheet. So you get a clean cut on the top surface. In the second pass, the teeth are pulling material up into the sheet, so you get a clean cut on that face too.

A track saw assures that the two passes are exactly aligned with each other.

[Brad Schmid]

I just use a Festool OEM fine tooth blade on my TS 75 EQ. It's a 52 tooth ATB and does a good job for me on various sheet goods including melamine...

[Rich Engelhardt]

I don't have the TS75 EQ, but, I had the TS55 EQ.
I also just used the standard blade - on the TS 55 it's a 48T I believe.

I did cut a lot of Melamine with it and it worked perfect - when the blade was new and so was the splinter guard strip.
Once the blade got worn and the splinter guard was no longer nice and crisp, it started to develop tiny chips in the cut.

Isn't there a scoring knob of some kind on a Festool? I searched for something about it and can't find anything. I was certain there was a small knob you twisted that stopped the blade from plunging more than just enough to create a scoring line.

FWIW - Oshlun and Freud and Forrest all make blades that fit Festool. IMHO - it's not necessary. I always considered Festool blades as premium quality and in the case of Oshlun, not much higher in price to be significant.

[Jim Becker]

Isn't there a scoring knob of some kind on a Festool? I searched for something about it and can't find anything. I was certain there was a small knob you twisted that stopped the blade from plunging more than just enough to create a scoring line..
There is a relatively new Festool track saw with scoring integral...the TSV-60K (https://www.festoolusa.com/products/sawing/track-saws/576735---tsv-60-kebq-f-plus-us). It's designed for folks who need to do a lot of cutting with delicate materials. But any of the Festool track saws have a positive stop for depth of cut, permitting a scoring type cut.

[jack duren]

Honestly don’t know.