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MFC - the Blade Assassin

Steve Maskery

Steve Maskery

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I'm making some kitchen cabinets. MFC for the base material, but I will see it only on the inside. All outside surfaces will be painted wood.
I'm quite well set up for cutting sheet materials, but usually I am cutting MRMDF or occasionally plywood. Not often MFC.
My technique for cutting is to set the depth to 6mm (i.e. 4mm for the track and then 2mm into the board) and make the cut backwards. That way the surface is cut with the blade passing down into the melamine layer, rather than trying to lift it off. Then the through cut is made conventionally.
The result is a perfect cut with zero chipping, better than the factory edge.
Perfect, that is, to start with.
I've made 3 cuts on 4 boards, each 600mm and I'm starting to get chipping. Same board material, same blade, same technique. 12 cuts.
The blade needs sharpening. Fortunately I have spare blades and perfectly satisfactory sharpening jig.
None of the edges I have cut today will ever be seen in the finished array of cabinets, but the in-between panels, the tops, bottoms and shelves, need to be perfect, because they will be seen when the cabinets are open.
What is is about MFC that can kill a decent blade so quickly?
 
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Steve my guess is they put all sorts of rubbish in mfc, the other week during cutting there was a bang and a few seconds later I heard something hard hit the extractor impeller fan, probably a stone or something very hard…….
 
Ive found it tends to be very small pieces of metal Steve, sometimes you can see them in the face of the cut.
If I’ve a lot of MFC edges to cut that need to be really crisp I’ll use a router on the tracksaw track after I’ve cut the panel to a couple of mm over sized with the tracksaw.
 
duke said:
Where is the MFC manafactured? Not come across quick blade dulling but I don't work with it much.
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A lot of it is manufactured in Europe Scott, predominantly Germany, Italy & the Uk but there are other sources
 
Never heard of the term here. What does MFC mean?

Pete
 
Are you sure it's not just the Melamine that is dulling the edges.

Not seen any specs anywhere, but have seen mention on occasion of blades specific for Melamine and laminates, Is there a difference in cutting edge angle of the carbide tips?
 
Steve does your board supplier not provide a cutting service, it make life easier.
Here in Spain pretty much every local board supplier provides a cutting edging and cmc router facility, my local one has a beam saw that’s accurate to 0.5mm
From memory cutting a full board (1cut or 20) is €4, edging is just under €1 per meter
So I don’t bother doing much cutting or edging, it also saves on saw blades.
 
I think there have been workshop fires in the past that have been linked to cutting chipboard and sparks going up the extraction system and settling in the dust.

I once made a mistake of using chipboard for a jig on the spindle moulder where I had to cut through the chipboard to cut a captive workpiece, it absolutely wrecked the cutters, and there was a lot of visible sparks coming from the cut.
 
Jonathan said:
Steve does your board supplier not provide a cutting service, it make life easier.
Here in Spain pretty much every local board supplier provides a cutting edging and cmc router facility, my local one has a beam saw that’s accurate to 0.5mm
From memory cutting a full board (1cut or 20) is €4, edging is just under €1 per meter
So I don’t bother doing much cutting or edging, it also saves on saw blades.
Click to expand...
Wow, that sounds good!
S
 
I worked for chep pallets for a long time and broken boards that came from repairing the pallets were collected by a chipboard worktop company by the 40' trailer. They were shredded up nails n all and made into boards/worktops. I presume they had a magnet in the process but stuff obviously gets missed.
 
Same here as Pete: I have had sparks when cutting chipboard with a plunge saw.

But it's also true that melamine blunts blades quickly. Years ago I was modifying a tall kitchen carcase to make it shallower front-to-back. I used a router bit to cut a fresh rebate for the back hardboard panel, and was annoyed to find the melamine on the MFC had made notches in the carbide (and it was a decent Wealden cutter, too!).
 
fuse said:
Laminate flooring has destroyed an Evolution blade of mine which should have been perfectly at home on the stuff
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I did a few floors here with it and after 25 to 30 years they're still wearing pretty well. I didn't have a rail saw back then, and did all the trimming by hand.

A company, probably Screwfix, announced a range of magically wonderful "laminate" handsaws. Ooh, at last! And they seem to have really pointy, very sharp, hardened teeth.

They worked really well, for about three strips of laminate. <sigh>
 
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