On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 13:20:35 -0000, "stuart noble"
wrote:


PoP wrote in message ...
As the worktop was soooooo heavy (it took
two to lift it) I did a rough cut with a circular saw a few inches
longer than I needed, knowing that the laminate would chip.

Surprisingly the laminate did not chip - and I did cut from the
laminate side.
Glad you said that. IME decent quality laminate doesn't chip with a circ
saw.
People tend to forget that ther a lot of different qualities of
laminate out there. Sometimes the chipboard core can cause problems
also.
I've known a saw cut completely wreck the face of cheap ply, but then
I've had a perfectly clean cut with good quality birch ply. I think we're
being encouraged to use routers for straight cuts when, in most cases, the
circ saw is perfectly adequate, and a whole lot faster.


I have often, when using a template, marked the outline with a heavy
felt tip pen. Cutting just to the outside of this line with a jig-saw,
replacing the template and then using the router with a template
follower bit very quickly finishes the job off. Much quicker, I find,
than multiple passes with the router on its own, especially in heavy
material



Paul Mc Cann