What's good universal cutting tool for laminate wood flooring?

Was already looking at a Dremel Ultra Saw or a Rockwell Blade Runner X2 Portable Tabletop Saw. Trying to remain cheap but also practical for the application. Any suggestions?

 

I've always just used an olfa and broken the stuff of I can. Scribe and snap. Otherwise, radial arm saw.

 

Was this on wood laminate? When I did it the show side would peel off unevenly.

 

I just redid all the flooring in my house using a Compound Miter saw from Harbor Freight. $60 when i bought it and made the job super easy!

Also have a battery powered Ryobi Jig Saw for the complicated cuts. For reference, laminate wood was about 1/8" thick for my flooring. Good luck!

 

How wide were the panels? I was looking into Miters but I believe our panels were just shy of an inch too wide to cut completely through. Also considered long cuts to be difficult if not impossible on Miter.

 

Compound mitre saw and a cheap blade with the most teeth you can get. A sliding mitre is really handy for cutting wider flooring boards in one sweep, but a 10" saw will work fine as long as you don't mind making a cut, flipping the board, and completing the cut. Table or circular saw with the same blade setup (as many teeth as you can find) for the rip cuts. Doesn't matter what the blade quality is, laminate flooring will ruin it very very quickly.

 

Long cuts I used a chalk line and the jig saw to run the cut. Most of the long cuts were going to be covered by molding in the end so if they werent the straightest it was no big deal.

Width of the panels was about 8" maybe...I have the sliding miter saw so the overall cut width is about a foot or so

 

Was using a table saw with an 80 tooth blade and no matter how much I babied it, the panels wood stick and/or kickback. And I've used table saws plenty of time at least in the past few years so I know it can't be just how im pushing it.

 

Sliding miter explains it. Other than harbor freight, those guys run over $300. Would a Dremel Ultra Saw be a good tool? I keep eyballing it.

 

What size blade on the table saw? If it's a 10" you want to go with at least 120 tooth count. Plywood saw blades work great; they're usually up around 200 teeth for a 10". That'll keep it from kicking around on you, and keep the chipping you get with laminate to a minimum.

 

Actually a 10' saw using 100 teeth avanti blade. Perhaps thats is, just wrong blade?

 

I cant speak from experience on that particular tool, but if I were going that route I would buy a full size circular saw. might help you get a straighter cut with a bigger blade

 

Laminate has a very very very hard surface. Blades with fewer, larger teeth take bigger chips out of it, and so they will catch that surface and make the board jump. Smaller teeth take smaller chips and do a lot less bucking around. Swap to a plywood blade and it'll make a world of difference. I've done two full 2200 square foot houses with laminate flooring and have lots of practice dealing with it's various annoyances vs real wood, lol.

Edit- One trick you can do is take your existing blade and put it on backwards. That'll help but it won't work as well as a plywood blade.

 

I'll give it a shot before looking for a different tool altogether than. Thanks!

 

Soooooo, I wound up getting a dewalt jigsaw with some laminate blades. Generally most my cuts are short except for an end piece which requires the full length of the plank. Cross my fingers when I get home I'll have some good news for the wife.



I value my life...

 

Dibs on your truck and guns.

 

I use a skil saw with a diablo blade. Works just fine. That's besides that fact that laminate sucks.

 

The first 2000 feet I laid with a 7.25 circular and a jig saw.

The next 2000 was with a 40 yo table top table saw, a jig saw and a miter saw.

The 2nd batch was easier. I was experienced and used better tool choices.

 

It does, but it's less than $1 a square foot, we get to make an 80s house more modern....and its our first home. Pretty it up in the next 5 years, sell it for more, move on to something better, rinse, repeat.

 

We only can only afford one decent tool right now, although i would love to have all the above and have my way with it. Figured Jigsaw was at least easier to manage due to its size and its ability to cut in small areas.