Jamie Buxton
01-15-2007, 1:10 AM
I bought a Festool guided saw to process sheet goods. The saw does one thing very well – cut extremely straight lines – but that’s insufficient to do my job. I built two fixtures to allow the tool to complete the job.
In processing sheet goods to make furniture, mostly what I need to do is to make rectangles. Rectangles have straight parallel sides, and ends which are exactly at right angles to the sides. I needed fixtures to add to the saw so that it can quickly cut parallel straight lines, and quickly cut exact right angles. (In the table saw realm, these would be the rip fence and the cutoff box.) The fixtures are inexpensive, and took only an hour or so to build.
Right-angle fixture
Here’s a pic of the cross-cutting fixture.
55146
For scale, the Festool guide is 55” (1200 mm) long, and it is crossing the 4-foot direction on a sheet of plywood. The fixture is essentially a big, very accurate, T-square. The error from 90 degrees is less than .02” in a 48” crosscut, which is about .02 degrees. It is built from Appleply (a higher-quality cousin of Baltic Birch) edge-banded with maple. The edgebanding allows the two arms to run through the jointer, and allows a handplane to tune the 90 degree angle, if that should be necessary. The arm running vertically in the pic is on top of the workpiece. The arm running horizontally in the pic runs below the other arm, and they’re joined in a big glued-up lap joint. The horizontal arm is then in the plane of the workpiece, so it is easy to snug up to the workpiece. The upper edge of the horizontal arm has a measuring tape on it. The zero of the tape is at the edge of the kerf cut by the saw. The right end of the horizontal arm is also at the edge of the saw kerf, so it is easy to see where the cut will be. The guide is not fastened to the T-square, but just sits beside it.
Here’s a close-up of the horizontal arm.
55147
Parallel fixture
Here’s a pic showing a Festool guide ready to cut the length of an 8-foot piece of plywood, exactly parallel to the left edge of the sheet. That’s because of the two fixtures to the left of the guide.
55149
Here’s a close-up of one of the fixtures, the master one.
55150
At the left is one half of a set of stair gages. These are little block of metal with a thumbscrew to grab them on to the wood. (They’re $4 a pair. Stanley and others sell them.) The tape on the fixture is set so that zero is at the saw kerf. To cut a 27”-wide piece, I set the stair gage on the master at 27”. The slave fixture is identical to the master, except that it doesn’t have the tape. I set it by holding it kind nose-to-nose on the master, and snugging down its stair gage.
55148
In this pic, the master is in front of the slave, and runs out of the pic to the left. The slave is behind the master, but you can see its top edge and its gage to the right. I use this method of setting the slave because it guarantees the saw cut will be parallel to the reference edge, and that’s what important for me.
In processing sheet goods to make furniture, mostly what I need to do is to make rectangles. Rectangles have straight parallel sides, and ends which are exactly at right angles to the sides. I needed fixtures to add to the saw so that it can quickly cut parallel straight lines, and quickly cut exact right angles. (In the table saw realm, these would be the rip fence and the cutoff box.) The fixtures are inexpensive, and took only an hour or so to build.
Right-angle fixture
Here’s a pic of the cross-cutting fixture.
55146
For scale, the Festool guide is 55” (1200 mm) long, and it is crossing the 4-foot direction on a sheet of plywood. The fixture is essentially a big, very accurate, T-square. The error from 90 degrees is less than .02” in a 48” crosscut, which is about .02 degrees. It is built from Appleply (a higher-quality cousin of Baltic Birch) edge-banded with maple. The edgebanding allows the two arms to run through the jointer, and allows a handplane to tune the 90 degree angle, if that should be necessary. The arm running vertically in the pic is on top of the workpiece. The arm running horizontally in the pic runs below the other arm, and they’re joined in a big glued-up lap joint. The horizontal arm is then in the plane of the workpiece, so it is easy to snug up to the workpiece. The upper edge of the horizontal arm has a measuring tape on it. The zero of the tape is at the edge of the kerf cut by the saw. The right end of the horizontal arm is also at the edge of the saw kerf, so it is easy to see where the cut will be. The guide is not fastened to the T-square, but just sits beside it.
Here’s a close-up of the horizontal arm.
55147
Parallel fixture
Here’s a pic showing a Festool guide ready to cut the length of an 8-foot piece of plywood, exactly parallel to the left edge of the sheet. That’s because of the two fixtures to the left of the guide.
55149
Here’s a close-up of one of the fixtures, the master one.
55150
At the left is one half of a set of stair gages. These are little block of metal with a thumbscrew to grab them on to the wood. (They’re $4 a pair. Stanley and others sell them.) The tape on the fixture is set so that zero is at the saw kerf. To cut a 27”-wide piece, I set the stair gage on the master at 27”. The slave fixture is identical to the master, except that it doesn’t have the tape. I set it by holding it kind nose-to-nose on the master, and snugging down its stair gage.
55148
In this pic, the master is in front of the slave, and runs out of the pic to the left. The slave is behind the master, but you can see its top edge and its gage to the right. I use this method of setting the slave because it guarantees the saw cut will be parallel to the reference edge, and that’s what important for me.