Hi All,
First time poster and I have never used the guide rail system.
I am looking to rip some long 1 7/8" mahogany (up to 8' long).  I can invasion that the single 106" long guide rail would be as straight as a laser but my question is if I connect 2 55" guide rails together with the guide rail connector is this really as straight?  Will there be any play or movement at this connection point.  I will be using a TS55 to cut this and I need this to be a clean and straight cut.  It does not have to be a glue line type cut but fairly close to it.

Thanks in advance

John

Other, more experienced people will comment or confirm, but at the Festool class I went to in Indiana the recommended process is to put the connectors in the rails, don't butt the ends of the rails together (they are NOT guaranteed to be square cut), bridge the TS55 across the gap between the rails and tighten the tracking knobs.  Then tighten the rail connector screws that you can access from the top, remove the saw and tighten the screws from underneath.  Double check your alignment with a straight edge.

Hope that helps.

I hope that this method is not still being taught in the classes. Back when I was developing the video below, this method was brought to my attention by Christian and Michael at Festool. Word was supposed to be passed down to the trainers that this method is not truly effective. The method of bridging the two rails with the saw is not effective because there are only 2 contact points on the saw, and it takes three points (actually 4, but the connecting bars serve this purpose) to set a straight line between the two rails.

As is shown in the video below, a level, other guide rail, or some other straightedge should be used to set the rails to be parallel. I also disagree with the need for a gap between the rails, even if the ends are not square. That's because the straightedge will override any issue with the ends being out of square.

Even though the ends are not guaranteed to be square, you will probably find that they actually are square. If you verify that your ends are square, then you can simply butt the ends, and be pretty confident that you have parallel rails. If I was joining rails frequently, I would actually take the time to calibrate the ends of my rails to be square. (However, for critical joints, I would still use a straightedge.)

Intro_TS55-TS75.mov

I don't have the need to transport stuff, so getting a 3000 when they were at the right price was a quick decision.

The Festool rail joining method isn't ideal. Festool can and should offer something better.

Creative use of lasers for alignment could be cool 

At 1 7/8" it doesn't matter how straight your cut is- that 8' mahogany rip is going to bow no matter what!

 

I use the back and assume it's parallel. If it isn't we're all in trouble!

Rail sections with perfectly square ends shouldn't be beyond Festool's capability either....

+1

Hi John,

Welcome to the FOG! 

Rip it a little overwidth so you can do  it again to straight line it.

Personally I prefer the long single piece rail , even thoug it is easy enough to  join two and have them straight.


Seth

Proved? No.
Expressed? Yes.

When you leave a gap between the rails, you actually increase the likelihood of knocking them out of alignment with handling. That's part of the reason why I disapprove of this method of leaving a gap between the rails. When you have the rails touching, you have at least 3 points of contact: the 2 connecting bars, and the one (or more) points of contact of the aluminum. Metal is not easily compressed, so you really have to whack them to knock them out of alignment. It is a matter of leverage.

Rick,

I concur, I am expressing my opinion. I do butt the rails as close to possible to get a straight edge with my four foot level. I will disagree with your statement saying that the connecting bars are a point of contact. In fact the four little screws are the point of contact and they can be loosen up very easily with the vibration of the TS55 and/or manipulation of the rail. It doesn't make much of a difference for some of my projects but for others, with expensive wood I check before I cut, just like I measure twice before important cuts. This is no criticism of Festool system, is just recognizing the limitation of the system when you try to make everything easily mobile.

Bruce

This problem is one reason I'm considering Mafell guide rails.  The Mafell Rail connects entirely differently....it uses a laser-cut piece of steel that has tensioners on one side.  When put in the rail the tensioner screws put pressure against one side of the rail housing ensuring a strait joint.

I've talked with users in the UK and all have said theres no need to use a strait edge for alignment with this design.

http://www.dm-tools.co.uk/extraimages/Mafell_Guide_Rail.jpg

I leave the connecting rods permanently attached to one of my rails to make the whole process quicker.  I stand the 1400 rail with permanent rods up strait, then lower the other 1400 rail on to the top.  The two edges are square, so when the ends butt, just tighten the set screws and you are good to go.  By doing it vertically you can tighten the front and back set screws without having to flip the rails. 

I have done this at least 50 times in the last 4-5 months and have had no issues. 

Hi John,
   to The FOG.

You ask an important question. Already many experts have provided a variety of answers.

From early 2006 until I finally bought a pick-up truck with a lumber rack, I used a set of three 55" rails. I would use one as a straightedge to ensure the other two were connected appropriately. My primary Festool dealer had been a leading figure in the Los Angeles furniture crafting community for decades. He suggested I buy the three rails with my first TS55, since I had told him I did not own a truck and wanted my Festools to be easily portable. To this day, when I must be on a site with difficult access, I use my three rail method. BTW, I like having that third guide rail for the cross cuts. Never in all these years did I have a problem with my connected guide rail staying straight. Generally I clamp my guide rails and always do so with any rip over 48", with a 3000mm rail or a connected pair.

Like others I have been proud to participate in many Festool End User training classes conducted by Steve Bace and Brian "The Sedge" Sedgeley. In fact I was a member of the first class opening the Henderson, NV location. That was a cabinet construction class, and rails from 42" (1080mm) to 5000mm were available for our use. During a break we had a lively discussion about ways to connect rails. The use of the TS55 saw as a fixture was demonstrated. I demonstrated my 3 rail approach, referencing the side away from the splinter guard. I explained that I did not want to be constantly changing the setting of the cams in the slot of my TS55 as needed to use the saw as a fixture,

Now John, I am sure you have read the replies mentioning that the wood plank will likely twist and bow as a result of being ripped. It does not matter how you make such a rip, tension in the wood is released. That causes all kinds of results. Personally I long ago found I was better off ripping solid lumber using a larger table saw, but I also always make my rips at least a day before I will be assembling that job. Often I run the ripped edge through a jointer shortly after making the rip. Then the next day I evaluate the straightness of the edge. Perhaps it will need another rip pass, but often all it needs is another pass through the jointer. Usually the first rip releases enough tension in the wood that on the second day it is safe to rip the other edge and joint that. Still, when making a long glue-up, perhaps for a table, I schedule an extra day just in case not all the tension was released.

Can we assume your lumber is 1 7/8" thick? You did not say the width of those planks. Has all your lumber been jointed on one face to render it flat and then run through a thickness planer to ensure it is uniform? I ask, because these days it is rare to have available planks that thick which are wide enough to support a Festool guide rail without using another piece of the same material. Where ripping with a track saw is not ideal is finding a way to clamp the rail to the piece being ripped.

When you read discussion of the TS55 and the TS75, the consensus is that the 50mm depth of cut with a TS55 on a guide rail is marginal for ripping 1 7/8" thick lumber. For best results when ripping such material it is best to have a larger enough blade a full gullet is available beneath the work. This is a job for the TS75 in my experience.

You will also want to use a blade designed for ripping. If I were attempting to do the rips you mention, I would be using a Panther blade: cat 496 305 for the TS55; cat 495 378 for the TS75. Panther blades provide about as good a cut edge ripping solid lumber as possible.

Probably you noticed I use both a jointer (the way I prefer to spell the word) and a thickness planer. Both of mine are 20" wide, because I use my jointer to flatten the first face of a plank. Only when that face is flat do I bring the plank to uniform thickness. Those are hardly machines normally moved to sites. Mine have 480v 3 phase motors. Consequently they are installed in my shop, convenient to a long sliding table saw with a 550mm maximum blade. My experience is a really good way to make the clean-up rip in solid lumber is to clamp the biggest part to the sliding table.

Virtually all the solid lumber I use comes to my shop as raw planks and sometimes logs. I have a 40hp Baker horizontal band re-saw with a powered conveyor belt which can conveniently reduce logs as big as 24" dia to planks of the thickness I desire. The advantage of a band re-saw is that the kerf is only 1.5mm, while a typical 550mm circular saw blade is 5+mm kerf.

Festool track saws are marvelous, but as fantastic as they are, track saws are simply not appropriately efficient for jobs better done on a re-saw and sliding table saw,

I join a set of guide rails frequently. After the first 2-3 times of doing it to figure out the process that works best for me, it now takes me about 30 to 45 seconds to put the connectors in and align the rails, and another 30 seconds to confirm that they're co-linear. Before I would trust the system, I set it up and broke it down a bunch of times. My worst measured deviation from straight so far as been 0.002" with the worst obviously being right at the join. I have not yet banged them around hard enough to knock them out of co-linear once I got them set. Then again, working with anything that thin and bendy and 3.3m long tends to make me quite cautious so I'm treating them pretty well. However, I'd treat a single 3m rail just as delicately.

The 2700 rail is still 10" longer than the sheet, so yes, it can be used for ripping a 4x8 sheet. There is not a lot of leeway in the length, so you do have to carefully position the rail for proper overlap at the beginning and end. If you use the rail in this manner frequently, a simple trick to help in positioning would be to put a small bolt in the underside T-track to act as a position stop against either the leading or trailing edge of the sheet.

Festool packs the longer guide rails, including the 2700mm, in sturdy purpose-built crates. All of the many rails I own were purchased from my primary local dealer. I have seen pallets of stuff from Festool at my dealer waiting being inventoried, but those are not long enough to contain even the 1900mm rails. I have been told that Festool bundles several longer rails for shipment, so the combined crates support one another.

I do own a 27oomm rail, because that is the longest which will effectively fit in the smaller shop room at my condo. Yes, with some practice the 2700mm rail is just barely long enough to rip 8' so long as you use a TS55. The base of the TS75 is enough longer that you need nearly all of the 3000mm rail to make the same cut.

Personally I had to wait until early 2009, when I bought a pick-up truck with a lumber rack, before I could transport long rails. Knowing in my larger condo work room I had space for a 3000mm rail, I bought that the same day as my 2700mm rail.

Previously I had bought the 95" 2424mm "Holy" rail, which could be squeezed into my Grand Am, unfortunately without its Festool crate. We discovered this the day in 2006 I bought it. My dealer saved the crate for me so the following day a good friend with a pick-up could bring the crate to my condo. Bummer that the 95" Holy rail is 11" too short to be useful ripping 8'  There must be a valid reason why the 3000mm rail is not offered with the milled holes to register the holes spaced 32mm. It could be that the LR32 holes are made on a jig borer of milling machine unable to hold a longer rail. These days that should not be a problem. My own Weeke CNC nested routers can handle 5' x 12' sheets. I do not allow any metal working in my wood shop, where those Weeke CNC routers are located because I do not want metal chips there. However, several of my friends in the metal working business use the same model Weeke CNC routers effectively. Compared to modern metal production CNC machines, the Weeke are inexpensive and yet very reliable.

It's not a matter of whether you own a Kapex or not, but how accurately you could make the cut. The accuracy of the trimming cut needs to be proportional to ratio between the width of the rail to the length of the rail. The longer the rail, the more critical the accuracy of the cut must be. It is not a matter of making a 30-second cut and calling it good. It's a calibration process that could require a tolerance (depending on personal preference) down to a couple thousandths of a degree.

On the other hand, as long as you used the same accurate saw t cut all of your rail's right and left ends, then it is less critical that they are exact, as long as they are consistent. One error would cancel the other.

+1 

You also need to think about the longest diagonal you might want to cut on a sheet of ply, plus someday having the 75 rather than the 55. IIRC, when I calculated it, that meant you needed 2900mm.