Michael Rutman
04-17-2023, 1:30 PM
Note: I am a hobbyist who replaces skill with good tools. If you are a good woodworker then you probably can eyeball the track and be perfect, that's not me. I can mess up a tape measure and have, often.
A while back I reviewed my problems with the Woodpecker attachments for the Festool track saw and gave it a mostly negative review. I just cut some cabinet parts and I got pretty good results. Not perfect, but that's on me. Had I spent a bit more time on setup I think I could get it as good as having a sliding table saw. Thought I'd follow up with how I got good results. Hopefully, this will help someone who bought them and threw them on a shelf because they couldn't get good results.
In my case I'm cutting 34 1/2" parts from my 4x8 plywood. That's the one cut I can't safely do on my Sawstop.
So, to review the problems. The ability to adjust the left and right guide based on their calibration and your eyeball is never going to work well. There's just too many compounding errors to get it within 1/32 of an inch over a 4 foot length. Getting things aligned to the point that you don't need to recut has a lot of people saying impossible, don't even try.
So, how to get it to work.
1) Change how you break down plywood.
Normally, people use some software package to optimize cuts. This won't work well as you want to do as many cuts of the same size in a row as possible. If you are making one or two cabinets, this means you will waste some plywood. My solution is knowing I'm going to make more in the future, so I cut the 34 1/2" ends off several sheets. What I don't use today I'll use next time. The inner strip (26ish x 48) at will get used to make the rest of the parts, and I always need stretchers, so I shouldn't have too much wasted plywood.
2) Get a really really good square 34 1/2 by 4 inch piece of plywood.
This is the key template, make sure it's right. Any error with this piece will reproduce on every cut.
3) Ignore the scale and use the template to set the distance.
Place the template under an arm and line up the template so it's flush with one side to set the stop. Use your finger to line up the end of the template with the cut strip. Your eye on translucent plastic is not going to be very accurate, use your fingers. Double check that the template is flush the entire length, the stop is hard against the template and nothing shifted. Double check that no light is coming through where the extenders are (they get loose).
Repeat for the other arm.
4) Place the track on the board using the stops on the Woodpecker and clamp it down.
Do not rely on the friction. The friction is good but not good enough. Clamping will sometimes shift, so double check that the stops are flush with the end of the board. That's right, the friction is not enough to keep the track from shifting while clamping. I found I had to push on the track while clamping it. This pressure can make the extenders come loose, so double check that (repeating theme).
5) Measure with a tape measure.
In theory you don't need to do this, but there is a gotcha. The track connectors get loose (as mentioned many times, you can tell how often it happened to me). You can eyeball it and see light, but the tape measure will warn you that one came loose a little or a lot. That means you have to double check the distance on both the left and right for every single cut. I cannot figure out why the track connectors kept getting loose but they did.
Overall, this is not the panacea I'd hope for. To be honest, it feels like Woodpecker tried to do too much and ended up not doing the basic job well. However, as i don't have a sliding table saw, this is actually pretty good for breaking down the plywood to what will fit on my sawstop.
Prior to getting this to work, I had to cut 1/2" long and trim, so definitely worth the setup time. It's up to you to decide if it's worth it on cost.
A while back I reviewed my problems with the Woodpecker attachments for the Festool track saw and gave it a mostly negative review. I just cut some cabinet parts and I got pretty good results. Not perfect, but that's on me. Had I spent a bit more time on setup I think I could get it as good as having a sliding table saw. Thought I'd follow up with how I got good results. Hopefully, this will help someone who bought them and threw them on a shelf because they couldn't get good results.
In my case I'm cutting 34 1/2" parts from my 4x8 plywood. That's the one cut I can't safely do on my Sawstop.
So, to review the problems. The ability to adjust the left and right guide based on their calibration and your eyeball is never going to work well. There's just too many compounding errors to get it within 1/32 of an inch over a 4 foot length. Getting things aligned to the point that you don't need to recut has a lot of people saying impossible, don't even try.
So, how to get it to work.
1) Change how you break down plywood.
Normally, people use some software package to optimize cuts. This won't work well as you want to do as many cuts of the same size in a row as possible. If you are making one or two cabinets, this means you will waste some plywood. My solution is knowing I'm going to make more in the future, so I cut the 34 1/2" ends off several sheets. What I don't use today I'll use next time. The inner strip (26ish x 48) at will get used to make the rest of the parts, and I always need stretchers, so I shouldn't have too much wasted plywood.
2) Get a really really good square 34 1/2 by 4 inch piece of plywood.
This is the key template, make sure it's right. Any error with this piece will reproduce on every cut.
3) Ignore the scale and use the template to set the distance.
Place the template under an arm and line up the template so it's flush with one side to set the stop. Use your finger to line up the end of the template with the cut strip. Your eye on translucent plastic is not going to be very accurate, use your fingers. Double check that the template is flush the entire length, the stop is hard against the template and nothing shifted. Double check that no light is coming through where the extenders are (they get loose).
Repeat for the other arm.
4) Place the track on the board using the stops on the Woodpecker and clamp it down.
Do not rely on the friction. The friction is good but not good enough. Clamping will sometimes shift, so double check that the stops are flush with the end of the board. That's right, the friction is not enough to keep the track from shifting while clamping. I found I had to push on the track while clamping it. This pressure can make the extenders come loose, so double check that (repeating theme).
5) Measure with a tape measure.
In theory you don't need to do this, but there is a gotcha. The track connectors get loose (as mentioned many times, you can tell how often it happened to me). You can eyeball it and see light, but the tape measure will warn you that one came loose a little or a lot. That means you have to double check the distance on both the left and right for every single cut. I cannot figure out why the track connectors kept getting loose but they did.
Overall, this is not the panacea I'd hope for. To be honest, it feels like Woodpecker tried to do too much and ended up not doing the basic job well. However, as i don't have a sliding table saw, this is actually pretty good for breaking down the plywood to what will fit on my sawstop.
Prior to getting this to work, I had to cut 1/2" long and trim, so definitely worth the setup time. It's up to you to decide if it's worth it on cost.