Why not cardboard?

[Millwab]

Ray, I don’t usually do much portrait work (I cut mainly puzzles) but I did cut one today. I used cereal box cardboard behind 2 layers of 1/8” ply and it did help a lot on eliminating the fuzzies on the bottom piece of wood. My only suggestion, if you’re a bottom feeder, is to make sure the printed side of the cardboard is against the wood. It can be challenging to find the holes against the pictures/writing if the inside (plain side) is inside and the print is out. DAMHIK

[kmmcrafts]

10 hours ago, Millwab said:

Ray, I don’t usually do much portrait work (I cut mainly puzzles) but I did cut one today. I used cereal box cardboard behind 2 layers of 1/8” ply and it did help a lot on eliminating the fuzzies on the bottom piece of wood. My only suggestion, if you’re a bottom feeder, is to make sure the printed side of the cardboard is against the wood. It can be challenging to find the holes against the pictures/writing if the inside (plain side) is inside and the print is out. DAMHIK

Thanks for sharing the experience and the advice

[Millwab]

@OCtoolguy Ray, I had the opportunity to cut another portrait out of 1/8” ply today but I only had one frame left for that particular size so I didn’t stack cut it. I still wanted to have a thicker stack for blade control but didn’t want to waste a good piece of ply, so I covered the ply with shelf liner on both sides. Glued the pattern to one side and glued the cereal box cardboard to the other. This kept the cardboard in good contact over the whole piece. After cutting the portrait both the pattern and the cardboard peeled off cleanly and there were zero fuzzies on the back side of the ply. It was so clean I couldn’t tell the front from the back!  I guess your idea worked

[OCtoolguy]

Thanks for giving it a try and reporting back. I'm curious to try corrigated cardboard.

[JimNC]

On 2/12/2025 at 4:26 PM, OCtoolguy said:

".....Why not cut the good flat sides from these boxes and use them for backer boards when cutting BB plywood?...."

 

Good idea, but I'll give it a try. 

I use (used) USPS, UPS, and FedX boxes when I make a pattern for wood toy making. Easy to store and free.  

[kmmcrafts]

9 hours ago, OCtoolguy said:

Thanks for giving it a try and reporting back. I'm curious to try corrigated cardboard.

I feel like the corrugated cardboard will create a problem with coming loose around the edges and then cause it to get hung up on the edge of either the table ( large enough piece ) or around the hole where the blade is and essentially mess up your cut.. Then you'll scrap the wood and the cardboard.  I hope this doesn't happen and only stating it so you'll possibly be thinking of that and use caution while cutting. I think your saws are the older models without all those dust port holes so you may have less of a problem with this happening than those of us with the dust port holes in our Excaliburs, Pegas etc..