There are special techniques that we use in the cabinet making industry to cut melamine board so it doesn’t splinter. Without the correct blades or tools, splinters will occur. Melamine board is used for many different cabinet parts, including doors, shelves, and drawers. Some stores use it for everything except the areas where the toes are placed.

If you are cutting with a table saw, you have two options to cut the board with minimal chipping. You won’t be able to produce perfectly clean, splinter-free surfaces on both sides of the board unless you have a double-blade table saw. They usually cost more than fifteen thousand dollars. If you’re just undertaking a do-it-yourself project, you may have some small chips to deal with.

sharp blades
The first method requires you to have a freshly sharpened saw blade on your machine. You will want to adjust the blade so that it only cuts the top of the board about an eighth to a quarter of an inch. Practice on a few pieces of melamine before working with the actual cabinetry materials. Adjust the height of the blade until you get a clean cut on both sides of the board. You need to push your material slowly through the cutter; the slower you cut, the less chips you will have.

reverse rake blade
This is a special table saw cutter that is designed to make clean cuts on both sides of the melamine board. This is not a cheap item to add to your tool collection. So if you’re only going to use it once, you might want to consider doing something else.

Use of adhesive tape (not recommended)
You can mark exactly where the blade will cut into the cabinet’s melamine board, and then place a strip of masking tape over the area on the side of the board that would normally chip during cutting. This usually works quite well. The biggest drawback to using any tape is that stickiness can create difficulties when making cuts. Be very careful if you decide to try this method, it is not very secure.

Other methods of making clean cuts in melamine boards include using table saws that have two blades and then cutting two boards at once.

Specialty saws that have two blades are very expensive. Most medium to large size kitchen and bathroom cabinet manufacturers have these types of saws. If you only need a few pieces of melamine cut cleanly on both sides, you should consider going to a large cabinet store in your area and having them cut the materials for you.

Cutting two melamine boards at once will only give you one board that won’t splinter on both sides. One of the boards will chip on one side.

Depending on the color of the material you are working with, you may be able to cover the chips with some type of filler. We use white “Seam Fill” on all of our white melamine boards that have small chips. This liquid material was designed to repair seams in Formica plastic laminate. Seam Fill is an excellent option for filling chipped areas in melamine.

There are also several ways to hide the tabs. If you’re cutting shelves, you can place the tiles up or down so they don’t show. If you are building drawers with melamine, you can make sure to put the clean cut side on the inside of the drawers. If you are using the cabinet door material, you should try to get the cleanest cut possible on both sides.