How To Cut Fiberboard At Home

All about sawing fiberboard
Sometimes on the farm it is required to cut a sheet of fiberboard. How can you cut hardboard smoothly and cleanly? And what is the best way to cut a fiberboard sheet at home? How to properly cut fiberboard with an electric jigsaw, a hacksaw and a circular saw?

How to cut fiberboard?

Depending on the thickness of the hardboard sheet, you should also choose a tool for cutting it. Better, of course, to purchase a special machine that can handle material of any thickness. But for a single solution to the issue, for example, if you need to repair a couple of boxes in a furniture cabinet, no one will buy expensive equipment. Therefore, for such work, performed from time to time with your own hands, the following tool is suitable:

1. Electric jigsaw;
2. Saw on wood with fine teeth;
3. Electric hand-held circular saw;
4. Sharp knife.

It turns out very smoothly to cut with a jigsaw if it has a laser illumination of the direction of movement. Perfect evenness is also observed when working with circulars. I must say that the jigsaw and circular are quite popular tools in the household, so these methods are quite relevant and affordable for home craftsmen.

If the thickness of the fiberboard sheet is no more than 3 mm, then it will not be difficult to cut off several parts with an ordinary sharp knife. Often there is also a milling machine in garages, so milling is also useful for making small workpieces from hardboard. For simple straight-line workpieces, an angle grinder can be used to cut a fiberboard sheet.

All about sawing fiberboard

The standard sizes of fiberboard sheets (they are also briefly called hardboard) are from 1.22 to 3.66 m in length and from 1.20 to 2.14 m in width. And their thickness starts from 2.5 mm, and ends 2.5 cm. Sheets of semi-solid and hard types of this material usually have more overall dimensions than soft ones, but still. Within the specified limits. Whole sheets of fiberboard are rarely used, and for the manufacture of furniture at home or industrial conditions, they are cut to the required size into separate blanks.

Sawing varieties

In order to use hardboard sheets more economically, avoiding large waste, in modern furniture enterprises, the material is first cut using computer programs, including graphics. Then the results are transferred either to programmable sawing machines, or markings are made manually according to the dimensions obtained in the program. Then the sheets are cut into separate blanks with the available equipment or tools.

At home, it also does not hurt to first draw up a diagram for cutting a fiberboard sheet, using the material as economically as possible. Even if you only need a part of the plate, it is worth considering how to cut it off correctly. A stock of this running material for the farm will always come in handy.

And the implementation of the process of sawing sheets of hardboard has several varieties.

1. Straight cut. Produced on straight lines. The blanks are rectangular.
2. Figured (curved). In this case, parts can have a variety of non-standard shapes. From simple circles to complex winding shapes.
3. Mixed. In such parts, obtained by sawing, there are both rectilinear and curly shapes.

We cut hardboard

Many modern enterprises selling building materials offer their customers sawing fiberboard according to individual sizes upon purchase. Special high-precision equipment is a guarantee that the work on cutting the material and processing the edges will be done efficiently, without chips. In this case, your main task will be to accurately make all measurements. If you are not so lucky, you will have to cut the hardboard yourself at home.

In principle, a hand saw with a fine tooth is also suitable for this job. After all, the small irregularities formed at the cutting site do not matter for laying the material as a subfloor. With a significant amount of work, cutting fiberboard is much faster and easier using the following devices:

Jigsaw

• Jigsaw or circular saw, preferably with a laser guide;
• Saw blades of a special brand, suitable for cutting hardboard;
• Trestles with a slope of 20-25% from the vertical, allowing you to fix a sheet of large-format fiberboard;
• Metal ruler
• Marker.

If you have to cut fiberboard for the first time, so as not to spoil the material, first practice on a small piece, setting the jigsaw file to the right of the mowing line of the marking. Beforehand, be sure to familiarize yourself with the techniques of experienced craftsmen, for example, by watching thematics, one of which is presented below:

How to lay fiberboard?

If, after laying the fiberboard, it is planned to lay linoleum, the hardboard is laid with the wrong side down. In other cases, the corrugated surface will provide better adhesion of the fiberboard to the finishing materials, so it is turned up.

Installation usually begins from the corner opposite the front door. Fiberboard is fixed using special staples, nails or screws, or glued with mastics. Before nailing or gluing, they try to fit the sheets together with a minimum gap to make it easier to putty the seams.

By the way, sealing the cracks near the walls is not necessary, on the contrary, be sure to leave technological gaps that will allow the fibreboard to “play” without deformation when expanding with temperature fluctuations.

Cutting fiberboard when bypassing the heating pipe is easiest with an ordinary knife. Accurately, this work can be done according to a specially created template made of thick cardboard, using a jigsaw.

After fiberboard flooring, if you plan to finish the floor with linoleum or paint, it is necessary to seal the joints. In addition to having high adhesion properties, the mass with which we will putty the fiberboard must certainly be plastic, since fiberboard floors are somewhat springy and capable of changing their linear dimensions. If you putty the floors with a rigid and monolithic putty, then it can either bend and deform the fiberboard sheet, or break itself at the junction of the seams.

Wall and ceiling decoration

Fiber boards are also in demand for walls and ceilings. Especially often, this material is used at the stage of finishing work in the construction of cabins, country houses, sheds and garages, which is greatly facilitated by its very democratic price.

The nail heads on the ceiling also need to be processed before further finishing.

If foam is used as a heat-protective layer, you can glue it to fiberboard using point fastening on liquid nails. Using mineral wool, you will have to spend time hammering the crate. In this case, the sealing of seams to reduce labor intensity is carried out using decorative applied aluminum elements or wooden strips.

If the walls are made of a sufficiently strong material (brick, foam concrete), then fiberboard can be attached directly to them, without lathing, using suitable polymer adhesives and mastics. To increase water resistance, such walls are treated with hydrophobic varnishes or paints after installation. By using slightly more expensive types of fiberboard (for example, laminated), you will get a much more aesthetic wall surface that will not need additional finishing.

If you want the walls to look more aesthetically pleasing, then you can decorate the fiberboard with their wallpaper.

To neutralize the effect of the moisture contained in wallpaper glue on the fiberboard, it is best to prime the sheets with hot (heated to 50 ° C) linseed oil or acrylic primer. Before this, thoroughly clean the surface to be treated from dust and debris.

Fibreboard seams

If the installation of fiberboard was carried out using nails, then, in order to avoid further rust stains on the wallpaper, at this stage, all attachment points will also have to be filled with putty. The joints of the plates will also have to be putty (and in several layers), otherwise, after pasting with wallpaper, the joints will still be visible.

After the preparatory work is completed, you can start gluing the wallpaper. In this case, the glue is applied not to the cut canvases, but to the wall surface. Otherwise, the gluing technology is similar to the usual one.

Rough floor finish

Sub-floors are mounted from hardboard quite often, this material is especially suitable for leveling old plank floors, if work on their dismantling is not expected. In addition to obtaining a perfectly flat surface as a result, the fiberboard layer will serve as a good heat insulator, which is especially important for residents of private houses or ground floor apartments in old high-rise buildings.

For subfloor laying, non-refined fiberboard with increased hardness or soft fiberboard is used as a soundproofing pad. Despite the abundance of hydrophobic additives in the production of modern fiberboards, experts advise to further process them before laying. Good results are obtained by impregnation with hot drying oil in 2-3 layers. After complete drying, the sheets can be laid.

Fiberboard floor, ready for further processing

If the old subfloor is fairly flat, the hardboard is laid directly onto it. With significant level differences (more than 10 mm), you will have to level the old floor or lay logs. In any case, the surface for laying fiberboard is pre-treated with an antiseptic primer.

Fiberboard processing for walls, floors, arches and ceilings

Fiberboard is an inexpensive and functional material that is successfully used in decoration and construction work. And this is quite understandable, because it can be easily bent, glued, nailed. Over, depending on the type of plates, they can be used in slightly different ways. [contents h2 h3]

1. Rough floor finish
2. We cut hardboard
3. How to lay fiberboard?
4. Wall and ceiling decoration
5. Interior arches from fiberboard

How to lay fiberboard?

If, after laying the fiberboard, it is planned to lay linoleum, the hardboard is laid with the wrong side down. In other cases, the corrugated surface will provide better adhesion of the fiberboard to the finishing materials, so it is turned up.

Installation usually begins from the corner opposite the front door. Fiberboard is fixed using special staples, nails or screws, or glued with mastics. Before nailing or gluing, they try to fit the sheets together with a minimum gap to make it easier to putty the seams.

By the way, sealing the cracks near the walls is not necessary, on the contrary, be sure to leave technological gaps that will allow the fibreboard to “play” without deformation when expanding with temperature fluctuations.

Cutting fiberboard when bypassing the heating pipe is easiest with an ordinary knife. Accurately, this work can be done according to a specially created template made of thick cardboard, using a jigsaw.

After fiberboard flooring, if you plan to finish the floor with linoleum or paint, it is necessary to seal the joints. In addition to having high adhesion properties, the mass with which we will putty the fiberboard must certainly be plastic, since fiberboard floors are somewhat springy and capable of changing their linear dimensions. If you putty the floors with a rigid and monolithic putty, then it can either bend and deform the fiberboard sheet, or break itself at the junction of the seams.

Sawing chipboard. Methods and methods of processing

[contents] If you have tried to cut chipboard at home at least once, then you know for sure that this work is by no means simple and requires not only skill, but also a good tool. Laminated chipboard is especially difficult to process, when sawing it often produces a lot of chips. That is why many craftsmen, faced with such a problem, come to the conclusion that it is better to cut the chipboard when buying, especially since many trading organizations provide such services and the price for them is quite acceptable.

Sawing of chipboard is carried out using precise panel saws, which will help to obtain workpieces of a given size and shape.

In addition to cutting sheets, you will be helped to calculate and provide in the form of a visual file several options for competent and economical cutting of sheet material (using special computer programs) and, if necessary, perform edging. However, if for some reason you prefer to do this work yourself, you will have to do some preparatory work before sawing the chipboard.

1. Tools and materials
2. How to cut chipboard without chips?
3. Figured cutting
4. What you can’t cut chipboard

How to cut chipboard without chips?

Before starting to cut chipboard, especially laminated one, cut the line with a sharp tool, along which we will cut and glue paper tape with a sticky layer along it. This will help to minimize damage to the decorative chipboard layer.

If chips still could not be avoided, we process the cut first with a file, working from the edges to the center, and then with a fine-grained sandpaper. It is also possible to mask all defects by using a flexible profile where possible.

Figured cutting

It is even more difficult to obtain curved surfaces of a given configuration at home, while you will have to additionally spend money on purchasing a router, which will help you get rid of chips and notches formed when you cut chipboard.

To cut chipboard, you need to follow these steps:

1. Having marked out the contours of the necessary part on the chipboard sheet, we cut it out with an electric jigsaw, trying to cut, retreating only a couple of millimeters from the intended mowing line of the cut;
2. We make templates of the design radius from fiberboard or plywood and carefully grind the ends with sandpaper;
3. Attaching the template to the part to be trimmed, clamp it with clamps and process it with a manual copying cutter with a bearing, removing excess material exactly to the intended mowing line.

It does not matter which cutter (with two or four knives used). The only condition is that the knives must grasp the cut thickness being processed along the entire height. After processing, it remains only to stick the edge on the part. How it’s done. Look at: