How Do You Cut Fibre Cement Board?

How Manufacturers Cut fibre cement

While many may wonder about the difficulty in cutting fibre cement boards, the reality isn’t nearly as strenuous. After the material has successfully been moulded and hardened, it is then cut using a polycrystalline diamond-tipped {PCD) blade. This blade is made specifically for fibre cement material and can cut through it quite easily. The blade will usually have either 4 or 6 teeth, allowing them to more effectively perform gang cuts.

In some instances, manufacturers or professional cutters will use electric power shears instead of a PCD blade. These shears are generally considered as a less effective form of cutting when compared to PCD blades, largely due to them taking a considerably longer time to cut. The benefit of electric shears is that they can make several different types of cuts without creating too much dust.

How You Can Cut fibre cement

For those looking to cut fibre cement themselves, there are several different steps to take into account beforehand. Here, we’ve gone over a few steps to factor in when cutting fibre cement yourself or at home.

Choosing Your Cutting Saw

When choosing a saw, it is important to use a PCD circular blade saw. As first mentioned earlier, PCD bladed saws are specifically designed to cut fibre cement. Standard carbide blades, while capable of cutting fibre cement, dull extremely fast, making them less effective as a result. Similarly, while PCD blades can gang cut, attempting to do so with a standard carbide blade will actually result in warping and overheating the blade.

Reduce Saw Dust Exposure

An important factor that should be considered is the reduction of sawdust from fibre cement boards. Dust from fibre cement, also known as Silica Dust, has between 15 and 30% crystalline silica in its makeup, making it an incredibly hazardous dust that should not be inhaled if at all possible.

You can reduce exposure in several ways. Firstly, make sure you are wearing a respirator whenever cutting fibre cement material. In addition, you can also use a dust-collecting circular saw to collect the dust through a shop vac. Another option to consider is the aforementioned electric power shears, which produce markedly less dust, though they are considerably slower.

Conclusion

The process for cutting fibre cement, while potentially quite daunting initially, is fairly simple in execution, being done largely the same as any other cement cutting procedure. fibre cement has many benefits and advantages that make it worth considering when looking for a material for your home. Not only is it a thinner and more resilient material, but it also can be cut and installed fairly simply as well.