How to cut fiberboard at home

How to cut fiberboard at home?

The raw material for PVC wall panels is polyvinyl chloride, which under high pressure is poured into a die (casting mold).

This method is called the extrusion method. To add color to the material ground natural chalk is added, the amount of which is usually not more than 40%.

In addition to painting, decorating panels is performed using thermal printing or offset printing, but the latter method is used less frequently, due to its higher cost.

Thermal printing is applied on a special machine with a hot roller that presses the thermal film to the surface of the product. It allows for a fast transfer of the pattern and a clear and bright print, and the panel itself does not need to be varnished, unlike the use of offset printing.

You may be interested in an article about how to decorate the bathroom with plastic panels with your own hands.

Universal cutter

There are many names for the universal cutter. It has many manufacturers. When we bought our tool, one of the leading manufacturers was Bosch.

The tool is not cheap. But once you buy it, you can’t do without anything else.

The cutter, unlike all other tools, vibrates.

We basically use two basic types of files: the wide one is 25mm40mm and the narrow one is 10mm20mm.

Very often when installing the PVC panel, you need to trim it in place. Often you can do it only with a Boshevsky cutter. No other tool is able to reach the difficult places.

The cutter makes the work very easy and fast. Wall products can be cut lengthwise and crosswise. We can even cut the top or bottom layer of the panel.

Let’s talk about the cons. The price of tools and consumables is off the charts. For example, a jigsaw blade will cost 100 rubles, and the saw blade for the cutter at 800 rubles. Saw blades wear out quickly.

Fiberboard panels are an excellent finishing material. The ease of installation makes them, perhaps, one of the best options for finishing corridors, hallways, loggias, offices, etc.д. Fiberboard panels can be mounted on the ceiling and walls. Fiberboard panels can also be paired with tile, plastic or wood paneling. It is possible, thanks to special connecting profiles. However, it is not advisable to use Fibreboard in humid areas, as they are made of wood dust, and by nature wood swells from moisture.

Installation Fibreboard panels are made on wooden bars crate, but the wood itself is not a cheap thing, and to save money on the crate, I recommend assembling it from profiles CD, UD for drywall.

Mounting Fibreboard Panels.

I will explain the installation of panels on the example of the loggia. Panels can be installed in the same way in any other room.

To assemble the grids we start from screwing the UD profile to the ceiling and floor along the whole perimeter of the balcony. Fasten the profile as always on plastic dowels with screws. Just do not forget to observe the verticality of the plumb line. The upper profile must match the lower profile.

If the room is present sill, under it too must be screwed profile UD.

The next step is to mount the CD profile in all corners. The same way we fix the straight hangers for the horizontal profiles. It’s better to attach the horizontal profiles every 40-50 cm. or they can be fixed at the knee, waist and shoulder level.

Fasten the horizontal profiles. We measure the distance between the corner CD profiles, adding 8 cm to cut the “ear”. Cut out the “ear” on both sides and fasten it to the corner profiles.

If you do not have enough length profiles and you do not have at hand a connector for the CD-profile, do not give up and run to the store. Connector is very easy to make yourself. For this cut a 12 cm long piece of CD profile and cut off the rounded ends.

What to cut Fiberboard panel at home?

The length of the panels is more than two meters, so they, especially if you do not have your own transport or it is inconvenient to carry them, cut directly in the store, but what to do at home, if necessary sawing?

For cutting it is recommended to use the following equipment:

• Wood hacksaw. it is not recommended to take a very large tooth, otherwise the edge will be loose, in addition, the teeth can catch and pull the decorative film;
• Metal hacksaw. cuts accurately and gently, but slowly, so it can be used for single cases when you need something to fit;
• Angle grinder with a cutting wheel. cuts quickly and accurately, but it generates a lot of dust, so it is suitable for working outdoors, or during major repairs;
• The jigsaw is suitable for indoor work because it is possible to connect a vacuum cleaner to it.

Press the blade with force on the material, then sharply make the cut and break the fragment with your hands, while cutting the film with the knife on the opposite side, you can use scissors on metal as well.

It is possible to saw a particleboard or laminated particleboard sheet by hand. Of course you can hardly avoid chipping and burrs, but you can try to reduce their number and size.

There are a few rules that should be adhered to when cutting panels Particleboard:

• Cutting sheets should be made on a flat hard surface. For sawing large panels, you can adapt two large tables (their height should be the same!);
• To avoid chipping, put masking tape or good masking tape over the cutting line that will hold the edges of the laminate layer in place;
• For sawing with a hand saw, choose a blade with a fine tooth. The teeth of the saw should be well sharpened. Drive the saw with light pressure, at an acute angle to the surface, constantly checking its position;
• for cutting particleboard and laminated particleboard with an electric jigsaw, the saw trimmer saw blade should be scratched or even cut through. It is best to use a sharp knife to cut through the tough layer of laminate;
• Install a saw with a fine reverse tooth;
• Select the maximum speed of the jigsaw, turn off the “pendulum”;
• fix a flat rail along the sawing line and guide the jigsaw strictly along it;
• Press the jigsaw firmly against the surface you are sawing.

All of these recommendations are helpful for cutting and sawing chipboard correctly, but splintering can nevertheless be avoided completely. Therefore, if it is so important to get a perfectly smooth, even line for trimmer cut, without chips and saw marks, you should go to specialized workshops, where you for a modest fee from a sheet of chipboard will cut any shape.

Installation of fiberboard panels is not something serious, which is why it is so popular with everyone who wants to save on ordering services and at the same time get a spectacular finish.

The length of the panels is more than two meters, so they, especially if you do not have your own transport, or it is inconvenient to carry them, cut directly in the store. And what to do at home, if it is necessary to saw?

By our own hands or to order?

High-quality sawing Particleboard is difficult to do by hand because of the large size of the sheets. The dimensions of the standard board 2440×1200, and this is not the limit. However, if you work with particleboard or fiberboard quite often, it makes sense to get an expensive tool and work at your own pleasure. If you only need to cut a few sheets, you can go two ways:

What to choose, it is up to you to decide, but we will consider each of these options.

All about sawing Fiberboard

Standard panel sizes Fiberboard, also known as composite board, measures from 1.22 to 3.66 meters in length and 1.20 to 2.14 meters in width. And their thickness starts at 2.5 mm and ends at 2.5 cm. Sheets of semi-hard and hard types of this material usually have larger dimensions than soft ones, but they are still within these limits. Whole sheets of fiberboard Fibreboards are rarely used, and for the manufacture of furniture in the home or industrial environment they are cut to the required size in separate blanks.

Types of cutting

In order to use OSB sheets in a more economical way without producing too much waste, modern furniture companies first cut the material using computer programs, including graphics. Then transfer the results either to programmable sawing machines, or make marks by hand according to the dimensions obtained in the program. The sheets are then cut into individual blanks using existing equipment or tools.

At home, too, it does not hurt to first make a scheme of sawing a sheet of fiberboard, using the material as economically as possible. Even if you only need a part of the board, it is worth thinking about how to cut it correctly. A stock of this material is always handy for the household.

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

• Straight line sawing. Produced in straight lines. Square timber blanks.
• Shaped (curved). In this case the parts can have a variety of non-standard shapes. from simple circles to complex twisted figures.
• Mixed. In such parts, obtained by sawing, there are both rectilinear and shaped forms.

How to cut fiberboard?

Depending on the thickness of the sheet of fiberboard you should choose a tool for sawing it. It is better, of course, to buy a special machine that can cope with the material of any thickness. But for a single solution of the issue, for example, if you need to repair a couple of drawers in a furniture cabinet, no one will buy expensive equipment. Therefore, for such works, performed occasionally with your own hands, the following tool will be suitable:

The electric jigsaw is very smooth if it has a laser illumination of the direction of movement. Perfect evenness is also observed when working with a circular saw. I must say that the electric jigsaw and circular saw. quite popular tools in the household, so these ways are quite relevant and available to home craftsmen.

If the thickness of the sheet Fiberboard is not more than 3 mm, it will not be difficult to cut a few parts and an ordinary sharp knife. It is not uncommon to find a milling machine in garages, so milling will come in handy for making small blanks from organolith. For straight, uncomplicated workpieces you can saw a Fibreboard panel with an angle grinder.

In special cases, take the right tool for hire, which is inexpensive, or turn to specialized companies.

How to saw properly?

Fiberboard must be sawed on a horizontal surface, such as a table or special saw bench. The surface must be stable, otherwise the accuracy or evenness of the cut will be difficult to achieve with a vibrating electric tool and a hand saw. The panel must be in firm contact with the table surface.

When cutting material with an electric jigsaw, the workpiece to be cut from the sheet should be on the right side of the tool. In the case of a hand saw, this factor is not mandatory. the placement of the sheet depends on the convenience of the master when working with it.

Working with the jigsaw, you need to slightly press the sheet of hardboard at the place of the cut to the table surface, which contributes to a clean. without “fringes” on the edges. sawing. When sawing with a fine-toothed hacksaw it is necessary to hold it at a slight acute angle to the cut line to obtain an even edge.

If you are using a circular saw, angle grinder blades suitable for wood should be used. If you saw with the standard wheel that circular wood saws are equipped with, then it is impossible to avoid chipping on the edges of the cut.

For cutting small pieces of fiberboard with small thicknesses, a knife with a sharpened blade and tip may be the best tool. Here too, you need to make sure the fibreboard sheets are flat on the surface. You can even cut on the floor, because no overhang of the edge of the workpiece over the edge of the table is required. However, you should put something under the trimmer trimmer line if you don’t want to damage the surface finish where the work is done. Next, using a metal ruler along the line of the marking on the sheet of organolith several times are made notches with a sharp knife tip, until the workpiece is completely cut off. It should be noted that the knife can cut fairly accurate in size blanks with straight edges.

In any case, when the edges of the workpiece are not too straight and clean, they can be smoothed and cleaned with a planer, fine sandpaper or a file.

If a solid sheet must be cut in half, it is better to find an assistant who would hold while sawing its part hanging from the table top of the sawing table. And you can also use two tables, placing the plate marking for the cut in the gap between them.

How to cut a fiberboard facade?

How it can be done accurately, evenly and qualitatively (without chips and burrs) at home if you do not have a circular saw? It is about an additional hinged element of the kitchen front, which is made to order after its installation. made a mistake in the size. Quality imported wood-fibre board, laminated with wood-like film and white plastic on the inside, about 30 centimetres thick. I do not want to order a new one, it’s almost 2 thousand rubles. Cost. Chisel especially for this too somehow stingy to buy the grease, and so the economy it is not particularly necessary. We can think of something?

to get to the nearest point with a sheet of material and dimensions.

To buy a circular saw especially for this too somehow stifle the greed

A circular saw will not provide a quality cut.

If 10 cm sawed off is one thing, if 70. another.

Alex_Penza wrote: get to the nearest point with a sheet of material and dimensions.

Sawing 700 mm. And with the thickness I gave too much. 20 mm there. And the cut for the pipe (heating) need to do. I have a drill, I will probably have to buy a ballerina.

abc wrote: Circular saw will not provide a quality cut.

What’s better, a jigsaw?? For some reason I was told the opposite.

Nah, a jigsaw won’t cut even, and there will be chips. If without a circular saw, then a good hacksaw, taking into account the measures against possible splinters. Carefully and slowly. The cut is a feather.

And what’s better, a jigsaw? For some reason I was told the opposite.

You were talking, but you weren’t telling me the whole story. Google “undercutting machine Laminated chipboard.”. SZ.People don’t pay tens for boards for nothing, to assemble their furniture.

Saw with any hacksaw with an allowance of one millimeter. Then you’ll sand this millimeter off with a flat bar. Labor? Yes. But to save money.

abc wrote : ZS.It’s not for nothing that people pay dozens for boards to assemble their furniture.

All the same, it’s cheaper than buying in a store. And if you order from someone, then the economy is several times over

If you have a router then rough cut off anything with a 3-4mm reserve then router.

Use a hacksaw with a 2-3 mm margin, then level it at zero on the board.planer

dadyjo wrote: If there is a router then rough cut anything with a 3-4mm reserve then router.

There is no circular saw, and we will have to buy a ballerina. You are a “cutter”. It’s easier to ask someone else.

Klausss wrote : There is no circular saw and you have to buy a ballerina

Well, somehow it turned out that way, I’m with joinery is not often encountered))) Circular saw I’ve already found where to rent for 250. And the planers are there too. Only now, after reading the previous posts, I doubt whether I can saw with them normally.

You can. Put the facade face down, put some surfacing board on top (no chips on the inside of the facade), put any flat piece on top. it will be a side support for the saw blade, have someone hold it all while you’re sawing. Practice on something.

Thanks! I will try to implement this design on the remaining after repair stools with a few clamps.

2ringo71 A circular saw has to have a proper blade or you’ll get a raggedy mess. Be careful there.

Klausss wrote: Practice on something.

1 You should definitely try it on something waste material first. You can buy specially for this purpose for 100 similar furniture board. To avoid chipping on the plastic and the front side, you have to work very carefully, and the preliminary training is extremely useful. And one more thing: the trim will have to be covered with something? If the fiberboard is left just uncovered, God forbid water gets in. it swells up. And it is not very nice. And if you make up, for example, with a furniture profile, then the requirements to the quality of the cut are significantly reduced. the profile levels out the unevenness of the cut (of course, within very narrow limits), and the edges of the profile cover small chips.

I cut it myself with a hacksaw and sanded it with whatever I could. Glued a polyurethane edge, it’s not the highest class, but I have these cut edges facing the wall, not in sight.

What saw to cut fiberboard??

For a smooth cut of laminated wood boards, a level platform is required for the support of the cutting tool, which has a supporting part. This tool is a circular saw, with which you can always evenly and accurately saw almost any material.

A good variant. Trimming saw with the possibility of changing the angle of attack (and make sure that in the specification the depth of cut is greater than the height of your baseboard). An easier variant. Metal saw.

What to cut a fiberboard apron with?

Angle grinder with a cutting wheel. cuts quickly and accurately, but generates a lot of dust, so it is suitable for outdoor work, or during major repairs; Electric jigsaw. suitable for indoor work, as it is possible to connect a vacuum cleaner to it.

Fiberboard can be cut with any cutting tool that is suitable for cutting wood. But it is better to use an electric jigsaw with a saw on metal or any other saw with a fine tooth. Choosing the direction of eaves Wood-fiber board, measure and cut the panel to the right length.

Finishing the walls and ceiling

Wood-fibre boards are also in demand for finishing walls and ceilings. Especially often the use of this material is resorted to at the stage of finishing work in the construction of huts, summer houses, barns and garages, which is greatly facilitated by its very reasonable price.

Nail heads on the ceiling must also be processed before further trimming

If foam plastic is used as a thermal protection layer, it can be glued to the fiberboard using spot fixing with liquid nails. Using mineral wool, you will need to spend time on making purlins. At the same time caulking to reduce the labor intensity, carried out with the help of decorative superimposed aluminum elements or wooden strips.

If the walls are made of sufficiently strong material (bricks, foam concrete), then you can mount the fiberboard directly on them, without crates, using suitable polymer adhesives and mastics. To increase water resistance, such walls after installation are treated with hydrophobic varnishes or paints. With somewhat more expensive types of Fibreboard (e.g. laminated) you obtain a much more aesthetic wall surface that does not need any further finishing.

If you want the walls to look more aesthetic, you can decorate them with wood-fibreboard wallpaper.

Important: Before wallpapering the Fibreboard, the surface should be sanded and then primed!

To balance the effects of the moisture contained in the wallpaper glue on the fibreboard, it is best to prime the sheets with a hot (heated to 50°C) olive or acrylic primer. Before that, carefully clean the surface to be treated of dust and debris.

If the installation of the fiberboard was made with nails, then to avoid later rust stains on the wallpaper sheets, at this stage must also be sealed all places of attachment putty. Putty (and in several layers) will have to and joints of the boards, otherwise, after wallpapering, the joints will still be visible.

Once the preparatory work is finished, you can start gluing wallpaper. In this case, the adhesive is not applied to the cut panels, but to the wall surface. In the rest, the technology of pasting works is similar to the usual.

Interior arches made of fiberboard

Interior arches radically change the design of the room, giving it a note of originality and nobility. They are very popular in small apartments, as they visually increase the space.

Since fiberboard is very pliable and easy to bend, it is hard to find a more suitable material for the arch. In this case, if you make the arch with your own hands, it will cost you much less than ready-made structures made of solid wood or fiberboard.

It is easiest to work if the configuration of the archway will be round or oval. You can also make a lancet arch, but you have to glue two fiberboards together at the joint.

The oval arch made of fiberboard is the easiest arch construction to produce

After deciding on the shape, we saw out the desired shape from the veneer board with a jigsaw. These blanks are inserted into the door opening. To easily bend the fiberboard to the desired configuration, finishing the ends of the mounted structure, it can be impregnated with PVA glue, after which the plasticity of the material further increases.

You can finish the obtained archway by wallpapering it. You will have to putty and sand all the seams before finishing. If sealing the seams will seem to you too time-consuming operation, you can finish the joints with a decorative plastic corner, which can easily be glued to the fiberboard with PVA glue or the same liquid nails.

With your own hands

Theoretically, you can make a whole room out of fiberboard. It is quite suitable for creating walls (it is only necessary that they were double and between them laid a good soundproofing material). Fiberboard will serve excellent as a ceiling, it is also appropriate for the floor.

For a rough floor, fiberboard should be chosen at least 6 millimeters thick, of higher density and not ennobled.

Fibreboards can even be laid on an existing wooden floor, as long as there are not too many height differences, otherwise the Fibreboard will simply crack. If you do such a floor initially, you will need lagi. You can lay sheets of fiberboard across them. Or you can make a wooden screed floor of unedged boards and put the fibreboards on top.

The surface on which the fiberboard will be laid must be treated. For wood, for example, is suitable hot olive.

If you lay the sheets on the old wooden flooring, it is necessary to patch up all the holes and large cracks. Such preparation will extend the life of the finished floor.

Every fiberboard must be attached to the perimeter. It is important that the finished surface is flat. On top of it can be put any coating. Even under linoleum and ceramic tile the wood-fibre board is suitable.

It is possible to make a fibreboard floor yourself, even without helpers. The work does not take much time. The quality of such a subfloor will be quite high and the price small.

Fiberboard is a versatile building material, but in order to perform a quality installation, you need to observe some subtleties.

How to lay fiberboard on an old wooden floor can be found at

What to do with fibreboard

So you have to install the fiberboard on the ceiling, walls or floor.

There are options for attaching the sheets to framing, joists, or an old floor:

• Fastening with screws. Each sheet is screwed to the base with a distance of not less than 5-6 centimeters between the fasteners.
• Gluing the sheets. Special adhesive or liquid nails are applied to the back surface of the wood-fiber board and to the subfloor. The manufacturer does not specify that the sheet must be left under the press. It only says that 20 minutes is enough time for the boards to be considered thoroughly glued. This method of fastening is only suitable for the installation of Fiberboard on a wooden substrate.

The fiberboard sheets can be glued to one another or a special connection profile can be used. And if such a floor is mounted under the linoleum, it is best to connect all its elements with construction adhesive tape or reinforcing mesh. If the installation was carried out sloppily, places of chipping and other errors must be putty. It is important to make an even surface.

Wallpaper on the ceiling and walls of fiberboard is no more difficult than on concrete. But the surface needs to be pre-treated.

• Wood-fiber board primer once, let the mixture dry;
• Putty the surface, remove all irregularities;
• Glue the white wallpaper, let it dry;
• glue wallpaper.

This method will allow you to change the wallpaper after a while without damaging the texture of the wood-fiber board. By the way, if you paint it correctly, then this procedure can be repeated several times later.

• Clean the surface.
• Apply a layer of alkyd primer. It is important that its temperature is at least 50°C and only one coat is applied. Primer is not absorbed well, and forms a film on the surface of the Fibreboard.
• After the primer has dried, paint the Fibreboard with a roller or airbrush. It is not convenient to do it with a brush, because the texture of the wood-fiber board is not homogeneous. The prepared wood-fibreboards can be painted with any paint.

It is difficult to cut or saw the boards with a hacksaw because it is difficult to achieve a perfect cut. That’s why you need to do it with an electric jigsaw. It is true and in the work with it you need certain skills, but by practicing on pieces of fiberboard and drawing the sheets, you can achieve consistently good results.

How to cut large-format sheets of fiberboard in a comfortable way is explained in the following pages

Thus, to work with this building material, which is based on wood is quite simple, the main thing is to follow the recommendations and then the final result of the construction will please for a long time.

Carving Fiberboard for Beginners

Fiberboard can be an excellent material for beginner carvers. It has the following advantages over wood.

No slanting layers (it is homogeneous in the plane, unlike wood)

Does not require surface preparation for carving ,

Availability. A large number of products (especially furniture) that are outdated and discarded contain parts made of wood-fibreboard and can be salvaged near garbage chutes ,

There are a great many tools for carvers, but the basic ones are:

Bleak carving block. Chisel for excavating the material and forming the background

Stamps. For creating different textures. most often at the background.

it is the easiest to learn geometric carving. one tool of a joint knife is enough for it. To speed up this type of carving, you can use a sharp chisel. With which you can carve two sides at once.

Here is an example of a geometric carving, but on wood. but I don’t think it’s hard to imagine that carved flat pieces of fiberboard can easily be used to make a box like this. or build a book shelf. colors. small statuettes. etc. д.

Beginners can also try their hand at making photo frames, like I did 20 years ago.

The knife version

With what to cut Fiberboard, so that the edge of the workpiece is the most even and intact? Here, without any doubt, the best tool will be a knife. Of course it is a more time consuming process because you have to work with your hands, but the end result is well worth it. But this cutting method is only good for small-sized pieces of wood-fiber board.

To cut the fiberboard with the knife, you must again lay the board on a flat surface. But here it is not necessary that the edge of the cut part of the board overhangs the edge of the countertop surface on which you will be cutting. First of all, a line is drawn with a simple pencil, then the ruler is placed according to the drawn line, pressed very firmly and firmly onto the surface of the panel, and the first cut is made along the marked line. When the first groove is made, the work gets more fun.

Time after time the plate material is cut deeper and deeper, and finally, after another tug, the plate is cut. You can also lightly roughen the edges of the workpiece along the edge with fine sandpaper, and the result will be excellent.

The version with the metal scissors

This is the most aggressive method, where precision and quality are sacrificed for the sake of speed. Here you can not bother with any flat surfaces, just when cutting you should not lift the board strongly on the fracture, otherwise it can strongly crack. To bring the edges of the workpiece into a normal form after such cutting, you will have long to work with rasp and emery board.

If there are no power tools handy, and the work plan is too big for a knife, you can use an ordinary wood hacksaw with fine teeth. It is certainly better than cutting fiberboard with a pair of iron scissors. And it is much faster.

Among the preparatory operations, again, the preparation of an even surface with an even edge of the tabletop itself. When the surface is, on it lies a marked sheet of fiberboard, we explain how to properly cut the sheets Fiberboard in half with a hacksaw. If you really cut the sheet in half, you will definitely need a partner who will support the other edge of the sheet Fibreboard, or you need a second tabletop that will not let this edge sag and go to the break (as in the previous cases with jigsaws and circular saws).

The cutting line for the hacksaw trimmer must be positioned away from the surface of the sheet Fiberboard at a very sharp angle. This is necessary so that there will be less “fringe”. And the sawing accuracy will be better. When the board is sawn in half its edges are also sanded and that’s it. Process completed.