I was chatting with a co-worker today who has some skill in cabinetry, and from our conversation I found out exactly what I was doing wrong... Just for future reference for people here, this is what NOT to do:
1. I was correct in setting up my guide on the peice I want to keep, but I made the mistake of standing and setting up my circ on the "keep" side, as well. Which meant that as I progressed across the 25" peice, I wasn't able to follow the circ, and in the end was reaching, which meant no pressure on the grip-hand, only the trigger-hand. That's not only incredibly bad form, but it's dangerous as well. If the tool were to snag and pop out, it could've caused some serious damage because there I wasn't in control of the tool.
2. I didn't have the cut-line hanging over the edge of my table (my table is just a scrap MDF peice on 2 workhorses. That was causing unnecessary friction and making it that much harder to cut
3. Because I had a peice of MDF laminated on one side, I was using the higher tooth-count blade that's specially used for laminate. While this is good if laminate is ALL you're cutting, it's wrong to use when it's already cemented to the MDF.
So with that one cut, there's 3 lessons learned!
That's good news, imo. The more I can learn from all this, the better off I am when it's time to build the second cabinet!
- FA