Anyone dialed this in? I’m moving more of my custom cabinet fronts to HPL-faced birch ply and Fenix, and my TS 55 with the 48T fine blade still leaves tiny chips on the exit edge even with a light score pass; worth jumping to a dedicated laminate blade or should I chase perfect edges with a router and a 1/4" compression bit off a guide? I want those razor lines without killing the pace of a small shop build.
Switching to the Festool Laminate/HPL 52T (TCG, negative hook) on the TS 55 and a fresh splinter guard cleaned up Fenix for me — , the 48T Fine Tooth kept leaving flea bites on the exit. > worth jumping to a dedicated laminate blade or should I chase perfect edges with a router and a 1/4" compression Jump to the blade; if there’s still a whisper of specking, leave 0.5 mm and kiss it with the compression bit off the guide.
I’d try two tweaks before routing: bump the TS 55 depth so the gullets clear the laminate and give the exit side true zero-clearance by taping/clamping a thin sacrificial strip tight to the cut line (think a track-saw throat plate). That plus a fresh rail splinter guard and slow, steady feed has given me “razor lines” in Fenix; if it still nibbles, a 1/4" compression bit for a 0.5 mm cleanup pass off the track is easy. @nblack_904’s blade call is solid — are you cutting on rigid foam or a backer, not sawhorses?
Piggybacking on @nblack_904: tilt the TS 55 1–2 degrees and do a shallow bevel score on the show edge, then finish at 90 deg; that changed the exit shear and killed the flea bites on Fenix for me even with the 48T. A dedicated TCG neg-rake helps, but this plus a fresh blade usually gets those ‘razor lines’. Are you keeping the show edge under the rail or on the waste side?