OK,

I have learned on this forum how to square the fence to the guide rail very accurately, quickly, and easily. Unfortunately it involved the use of a 18" by 10" square which goes for $160.  Thats a tad high for me.  Are there less expensive alternatives which are still accurate.

Thanks for your suggestions.

That is a tough one.

here are a few options
1  measure over for square free

2 12 x12 speed square check and file to make dead on..$12.00  pretty easy to do

3 buy a dewalt square http://www.amazon.com/DeWALT-DWS5027-DEWALT-TrackSaw-T-Square/dp/B001J34IQ4/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1252966312&sr=8-8  $26

4  build your own from an FS KS   $70  plus allot of work  

I am sure there are other options out but these work
Craig

For around $20 US you can buy a Starrett brand Framing Square, which is a very handy thing to have if you are doing this type of work.  Starrett brand is excellent quality and should be very precise for a framing square.  Woodcraft sells them, just do a Google search.
Jay

This is the square I have and I use it for this application as well as many others because I can take advantage of how thick it is.  This is actually the square Festool used at the training class to demo how to square up the fence on the MFT/3

I think the company that makes them guarantee them?  Pinnacle makes those squares and they are out of Cleveland Ohio.  Woodcraft tried to tell me that they only make those squares for Woodcraft stores but woodpeckers sells them also but they are red instead of black..

No I didn't, thanks for pointing that out.

Can't you just check your square before you set it up? 

I'm with you on this one Rick.  Even if my square is dead on I get a much more accurate result using the 4 cut method. I set my kapex, MFT/3, and crosscut sleds with this method.

While my statement may seem extreme, if you are going out and buying a $100 square (as someone stated earlier) to square your tools, then it is not extreme. The method I mention is more accurate than the $100 square, and from that perspective, it is not extreme.

If you don't need accuracies greater than plus or minus 1 degree, then a framing square and eye-balling are sufficient. But on something as long as a TS guide rail, even that $100 square coupled with "eye-balling" will not give you very accurate results.

I may use a square to check the square of a workpiece, but I will never use a square to calibrate the tool that I use to create that workpiece.

That's what i was thinking!    I was working on a project and i had one of those moment,"why do i feel this is not square?"I use everything that i have to check for squareness and then use one of those T square and ...and...well i went home!

I bought these squares from woodcraft, took them home and tested them.  All but 1 was close to being square, I took them back.  I will never buy a 3 pack of squares for 39 bucks again.  You get what you pay for.

Mine were fine.  I tested them at work on a piece of test equipment granite slab (calibrates) and a steele set up triangle that is machined 45/90.  It was within the specificed tollerences.  Even if it had been lets say .0003 it would still be dead on for wood.  I have made numerous pieces using these squares and all joints have been perfect.  I think some times we get way to focused on taking things to .000000000000 decimal places for accuracy.  After a certain point it just don't matter.  Don't get me wrong if people want to go to that extreme hey have at it.  I just don't see the point.   

Hard to believe. Even the cheapest of production techniques will deliver reasonably square objects. And 39 bucks isn't cheap at all. You can by these things cheap for a dollar and a half out of china and even they are to some extent usable.
 
How many micrometer is "extremely far off" for you? 

I guess quality control had an issue.  The ones I have said made in india.  Acutally the small on comes in handy and I keep in my shirt pocket for a quick check.   To be honest I threw my jacobs speed square up against the large one and it was pretty dead on.  The were a couple areas that I could have put a feeler gauge under, but I was surprised at how close the old speed square was and I've had it for years and its seen quite a bit of construction and been banged around with the tool belt.  I was visiting a woodcraft store in VA and on the half off was a nice 6" woodpecker square that was half off at 40 bucks. I'm still kicking myself for not getting it. 

How much does something like that run?