Mark Blumer
11-30-2004, 12:22 PM
I bought my ATF55 with two rails because getting in and out of my basement shop is, at best, a chore and at worst, impossible with full sheets of manufactured boards. Yesterday I got another use from it. I bought a single 4/4, 12 foot x 10 inch rough sawn cherry plank. I had them cross-cut it to 8 foot at the yard and brought the wood home (I need 7 1/2 feet for this project).
When I laid the plank on my table saw and looked more carefully, I realized that it was crooked along both long edges. The variance from straight was a belly of about 1 1/4" in the middle of its length. Although I have a very fine table saw, I needed to establish a straight edge. I wanted to cut off a 4" x 8' strip that I could face plane and then thickness. In prior days, I would have had to make up a sled from scrap plywood and attach the plank to the plywood with the wood overhanging on the blade side and the plywood straight edge against the fence. This is a real pain with such a large, heavy piece of wood.
With my new Festool saw and guide, I just laid the rail on the convex side so that the ends of the plank were just barely exposed from the rubber edge of the rail and the curve of the wood extended beyond the rail. A single pass from the saw gave me a perfect (and finished) straight edge on the lumber. It was then an easy matter to flip the board over and register the straight edge on my table saw fence for further cuts. I love these Festools!
Mark Blumer (East Lansing, MI)
When I laid the plank on my table saw and looked more carefully, I realized that it was crooked along both long edges. The variance from straight was a belly of about 1 1/4" in the middle of its length. Although I have a very fine table saw, I needed to establish a straight edge. I wanted to cut off a 4" x 8' strip that I could face plane and then thickness. In prior days, I would have had to make up a sled from scrap plywood and attach the plank to the plywood with the wood overhanging on the blade side and the plywood straight edge against the fence. This is a real pain with such a large, heavy piece of wood.
With my new Festool saw and guide, I just laid the rail on the convex side so that the ends of the plank were just barely exposed from the rubber edge of the rail and the curve of the wood extended beyond the rail. A single pass from the saw gave me a perfect (and finished) straight edge on the lumber. It was then an easy matter to flip the board over and register the straight edge on my table saw fence for further cuts. I love these Festools!
Mark Blumer (East Lansing, MI)