Best 'affordable' melamine blade?

[Michael Donahue]

I got a bunch of 13"x48" melamine offcuts dirt cheap (50 cents each!) at the borg recently so I'm planning on building come cabinets & shelving. I need a blade that will do a decent job cutting this stuff, but I don't want to spend a fortune because it would kind of defeat the point of doing this project on the cheap :D

Can you give me some recommendations for a decent, yet not particularly expensive blade for this? I saw this Avanti blade on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Freud-TK806L-10-Inch-Melamine-Laminate/dp/B00006407N/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1227801550&sr=8-3 but I bet there are other ones out there.

Thanks for the help!

[Dewey Torres]

Mike,
That Freud is a very good blade for what you are looking for. It won't excel at much else but it cuts melamine very well.

[Matt Ocel]

I have pretty good luck using a regular carbide tip blade and have minimal chip out.

[Dewey Torres]

This was done by wood magazine. Far right column is the melamine test.

http://www.woodmagazine.com/wood/pdf/WOOD-Saw-Blades-II-The-Retest.pdf

[Rich Engelhardt]

Hello,
Good blade.
It's vital to also use a ZCI.

I used the stock Ridgid combination blade that came with my TS3660 and a brand new - just cut and fitted - ZCI to cut up some scraps of melamine shelving for fences. It produced a very good cut. Not great, but very good.

I also used the stock blade on my Festool TS55EQ when I cut the 10 foot section of melamine down into 3 foot pieces. That's a pretty high tooth count 160mm blade. The edges were perfect. Not great - perfect.

[Jamie Buxton]

For zero dollars, you can do the poor-man's scoring blade trick. Say you're doing a tablesaw cut with the rip fence as a guide. You take two passes to make the cut. For the first pass, you raise the blade just a thirty-second or so. This pass cuts the melamine at such a flat angle that no chipout occurs. Then you raise the blade and make the second pass to cut through the rest of the material. Of course, you need a very repeatable saw to do this. A tablesaw with a rip fence and a cutoff box does nicely.

[Rod Sheridan]

I use a Dimar 10-80TCG blade which I believe is the blade Lee Valley sell as # 15T92.01.

Regards, Rod.

[Dave Falkenstein]

The Amana Melamine blade is excellent and moderately priced:

http://www.amanatool.com/sawblades-melamine.html

The High-Alternate Tooth Bevel (H-ATB) grind does a really good job on melamine and other veneers. I have used blades with a triple chip grind, like the Freud Avanti, and IMHO a blade with a H-ATB grind does a better job on melamine. If you cut a lot of melamine, you will find the H-ATB blade needs sharpening more often, but that has not been a problem in my home-based shop.

I also get good results with melamine using a sharp Forrest 40 tooth WWII and a ZCI, but not as clean a cut as with the Amana H-ATB blade.

[scott spencer]

Scoring the cut line first is a very effective way to reduce tearout....taping is another method. As far as the blade goes, a Hi-ATB grind will offer the lowest tearout, and when combined with a high tooth count and low hook angle, you'll get the cleanest cut possible assuming good precision. Scoring, taping, and using a blade like that is as good as it gets.

Oshlun has an 80T Hi-ATB (http://www.amazon.com/Oshlun-SBL-100080-10-Inch-Tooth-HI-ATB/dp/B001KW00YI/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1227805515&sr=8-7) with a low hook for $42 shipped on Amazon. Not sure if Holbren offers this particular blade but it's a worth asking...."SMC10" gets 10%, and he might even have some Black Friday specials going. My experience with their 40T blade was very favorable for the price...surprisingly well made.

[Rod Sheridan]

I found that if you set up the scoring blade a few thou wider than the main blade it actually eliminated chipping on the bottom......Rod.

[Phil Thien]

Sometimes when I do a scoring cut, and if I'm being real finicky, I'll put a piece of masking tape on the fence. Then I remove the tape, raise the blade, and do the final pass. It works extremely well.

[Michael Donahue]

Thanks for the input folks.

FWIW, I presently have a Forrest WW2 and have found that it doesn't cut melamine all that well. I also don't want to abuse the blade too much cutting this stuff. I know that some people recommend taping the cut-I have to do this with plywood crosscuts but it hasn't worked too well with melamine. I also appreciate the tip on scoring the melamine, but if this project goes the way I plan and I cut all the melamine I have (20 pieces roughly 13"x48") I will wish that I had just gotten a better blade! :D

I think that the Freud Avanti Blade and the Olshun both look pretty good so I was hoping you could give me a bit of advice between the 2.

Freud Avanti: http://www.amazon.com/Freud-TK806L-10-Inch-Melamine-Laminate/dp/B00006407N/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1227801550&sr=8-3

Oshlun: http://www.amazon.com/Oshlun-SBL-100080-10-Inch-Tooth-HI-ATB/dp/B001KW00YI/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1227805515&sr=8-7

The Avanti has a TCG grind, while the Oshlun is Hi-ATB. Which would cut more cleanly in the melamine and hopefully in plywood if I could get away with it? I know that Freud has a good rep, but what about the Avanti line? Or Oshlun for that matter?

I really do appreciate all the help folks!

[Jay Yoder]

I have both the thin kerf and full kerf Freud (not Avanti) blades. Theyare excellent. Depends on how much you plan on working with melamine. I highly recommend freud. I have even used my fusion blade and it worked well too!! Just me .02...

[Matt Meiser]

I have the Forrest plywood/Melamine blade which works well and I've used my Festool saw which works great. Neither probably meets your "affordable" requirement. Even with the Forrest blade, I found it was worthwhile to tape the cut lines. What I found at close inspection was that the melamine would chip where there was a tiny void in the sawdust filler. The melamine layer on the melamine coated particle board at the BORG is microscopically thin and where it isn't supported, its likely to chip. That was with a ZCI. The 1/4" melamine coated MDF I used for the cabinet back on the same project had no chipout with no special precautions.

Be careful once you get perfect cuts--the edges are then razor sharp. I had little cuts all over my hands from them.