Went to a custom shop in Portland last week and noticed something about their assembly line

I visited Anderson Custom Cabinets on Tuesday and saw they use a track saw setup for all their panel cuts instead of a table saw. They had zero tearout on melamine and moved through 40 sheets in 3 hours. Has anyone else switched to track saws for production work and seen a real time savings?

3 comments

3 Comments

kimr107d ago

Wait, they ran forty sheets through a track saw in three hours without a single tearout?

ray_miller417d ago

Have you tried using a zero clearance insert on your track saw track? I had the same issue with tearouts on melamine until I taped or put a thin strip of hardboard along the cut line on the track itself. It made a night and day difference for me, even with cheap blades. Plus good quality tape on both sides of the cut helps a ton too, but that zero clearance trick is what really got me through a big sheet job without any chip out.

mila_flores87d ago

Have you tried just sticking a piece of the same melamine down on top of the sheet where you're cutting? That's what I do when I'm making a jig or template. I just screw a thin strip right through the cut line on the track, and it acts like a zero clearance insert for that one pass. Works way better than tape for me, especially on that slick melamine surface where tape doesn't always want to stick.