I took on a larger project recently. I am converting a Corian countertop/sink + island + desk in a kitchen area over to a hardwoood live-edge counter top.
Laminate - A bunch of boards/planks glued side by side in this case
Butcherblock - Typically end-grain up and down on smaller pieces of wood all glued together. In this build, the planks are full thickness of the countertop, and run long grain down the length of the counter top
Live-Edge - The final plank of the board is not cut to a factory finish, but instead is a smooth sinuous/wavey edge that slightly varies by 1/4 inch for the length of the board. Due to the live edge, the boards are not completely parallel to the factory cut edge.
1.5" Thick x 25" Deep
x 4 ft
x 6 ft
x 8 ft
x 10 ft
Note the 25" depth ends with some 1/4" variation in the live edge, and the live edge tapers about a half inch.
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^^^^ Taper
The taper can point up or down.
This product offered by Home Depot in 2025, is a Saman (aka Rain Tree Wood, or Monkey Wood) hardwood from South America.
The planks in the laminate go through the full thickness of the countertop, but the planks vary in width a good bit and are not perfectly parallel to the factory edge.
Also the factory edge has a round-off across the last 3/4"... like a minor taper of 1/32". The whole thing is prefinished with a UV-paint. Best I can guess, it's a semi-gloss, clear coat. It's pretty hard, but not harder than most metals or ceramics.
On the east side of the kitchen is the sink, and dishwasher.
The south-east corner has about 5 feet that goes to the fridge. This will miter with the long stretch on the east side.
After the fridge and a mini pantry/spice cabinet, is a desk area that is just under 4 feet wide.
There are no counter stretches on the north or west sides of the room.
In the middle of the room is the island, with a stove top/oven (30" wide) facing the sink. It has a 1 foot counter to either side, and has a 63" island attached to both of the 1 foot counters making a u-shape around the oven. The total width of the island is 56 1/2" and the total length is 90".
The structural support under the island is 1 1/4" square steel tubing, with plastic end caps. This rests on top of some standard cabinetry, with some electrical outlets added.
To cover the island with the hardwood laminate countertops, 3 pieces are needed:
2 8ft pieces, and 1 6ft piece. The live edge will be removed from the 6ft piece and the round-off will be removed from all factory edges that run the length of the boards.
This is the easiest cut. It is slightly more shallow than the rest of the counter tops so the depth needs to be cut to 23 inches (removing two inches from the factory edge). Then the width needs to be cut to match the old one and get dropped in.
The island currently has the oven and a large plywood covering and two small plywood coverings on it. 1 ft counter tops by the oven need to be lowered 1/4" before proceeding with the replacement.
The end sizes for the 3 pieces ended up being:
2x 20.75 x 90 from the 8ft boards
1x 15 x 63 from a 6ft board
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Then an additional square needed to be cut out of the 8 ft boards to make room for the oven. 7.25 x 27 and a 3/8" hole for the corner it would hit.
The miter should line up the live edges in a nice way. So the two pieces being used for the miter should be stacked, and then determine the intersection point of the live edge.
Also the previous counter top had a 6" drop for the south section (to avoid joining two pieces of counter).
This is getting a drawer and filled to bring the counter up to level.
The total length here is 162. The 10 ft board is only 122 inches. So another 40 inches will need to get added on.
The sink will be a double wide single bowl stainless steel (rounded corners) under mount sink. This sits about 6ft from the north wall.
The dishwasher is adjacent to it. Then a few feet later the miter starts to join with the south-east corner of counter top.
I started with a 7 1/4" Diablo 60 tooth blade from Harbor Freight on a low end Drill Master Circular Saw (with a lot of wear and tear on it).
Almost nothing on this saw was "true" (likely from lots of use/abuse by the owner). The sled was misaligned with the blade (front edge distance v the rear edge distance); the blade was very difficult to get square to the sled. Also the sled is some bent steel with some questionable mounting to the rest of the saw.
A new blade did not fix the lack of "true" in the blade. It did cut, but the serations were visible vertically. The initial entry while the guard was lifting up with cause the blade to wobble +- 1/16" of an inch. And it was a 88 degree cut angle instead of a straight 90 degree cut. And it would leave some hairs in the top edge of the board (tearout).
A nice long fence (rail or track) made cuts repeatable. This was a $40 clampable fence from Harbor Freight with dimensions 101 inch x 3 inch x .75 inch. At full length it can bow a bit (1/16") in the middle, but taping down another block against the lateral movement in the middle fixes it.
Getting the highest end plugin circular saw at Harbor Freight was $90 with their high end 40 tooth hardwood blade made a big difference.
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Magnetic blade stop
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2x on speed
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Almost twice the weight
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Aluminum sled (seems higher precision and better mounted)
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Vacuum attachment
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Blade was labeled as high speed 40 teeth ($15)
For Rip cuts (going the length of the board) in 1.5 inch hardwood, a blade with fewer teeth performs better because the chips can be longer.