LESLIE: Eileen in Nebraska, welcome to The Money Pit. How can we help you?
EILEEN: I want to – I’m putting on some countertops …
TOM: OK.
EILEEN: … and I want to cut them and I was wondering what kind of saw – whether I use a circular saw or a jigsaw.
LESLIE: Is this the prefabricated particleboard with the laminate on top? Did you pick it up at the home center?
EILEEN: Correct.
TOM: OK, so you want to cut it to size? Alright, so here’s what you need to do. First of all, you want to take the area that you’re going to cut and put masking tape over it.
LESLIE: That’s going to prevent the laminate from chipping and splitting as your blade goes through because you’re going to cut right through that tape. So you want to put the tape where you’re cutting; so you’re cutting in the middle.
TOM: Right on top of the cut line. Now, you also want to turn it upside down and you want to cut it from the bottom and the reason you’re doing that is because the circular saw blade, as it spins through, the blade spins up and it’s not going to chip off the edge of the laminate. So putting the tape on it and cutting it upside down – so cutting the bottom of the countertop as opposed to the top, is going to stop you from chipping it as you do this. And you’re going to need to cut across the bottom and then across the splash and sometimes you have to finish it off very, very carefully with a handsaw and just what’s remaining in that little corner. But that would be the way to do it.
The other thing we would tell you is to make sure that you put the countertop up against the wall and check for squareness because you may find that that end cut against the wall has to be slightly out of square because very often the wall corner is not perfectly square.
EILEEN: (inaudible at 0:14:46.3) (chuckles)
TOM: That is the case, right? (chuckles)
EILEEN: That is the case.
TOM: OK, Eileen. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
Leave a Reply