Hi there,
Until know I was using masking tape as stopping or starting marks on my Festool rails.
I have a new project for which I will do a lot of repetitive cuts with the same measurements, and thought I'd better get decent stops for the job and stop messing with tape.
I've been playing with 3D printers for a while and felt confident enough to design and print Festool compatible stops by myself instead of buying them.
At first, I modeled an MFT stop.
It is very similar to the original one though I had to redesign it to make it printable.
The steel bracket was cut in an old shutter hinge, and took some time to adjust and polish.
I did not use a square nut to secure the stop to the extrusion, but a standard M6 hex nut.
The whole thing worked like a charm; no play; smooth action [cool]
Next day I worked on an FS stop.
This time, as I don't have any original FS stop, I designed it from scratch.
I tried to make it as small and simple as possible.
The extrusion being wider than the one of the MFT, an M6 nut cannot be used alone to hold the stop.
Therefore, I added a plastic nut that traps the M6 one and grabs the channel without any risk of denting the aluminium.
The stop catches the saw base at its corner so a round notch was added for better contact.
Again, it worked fine and I printed a few of them for my other tracks.
If you have access to a 3D printer, the 3D models and build instructions are detailed and shared on thingiverse.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:921862
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:921136
Now it's time to go back cutting wood [wink]
Tom
Until know I was using masking tape as stopping or starting marks on my Festool rails.
I have a new project for which I will do a lot of repetitive cuts with the same measurements, and thought I'd better get decent stops for the job and stop messing with tape.
I've been playing with 3D printers for a while and felt confident enough to design and print Festool compatible stops by myself instead of buying them.
At first, I modeled an MFT stop.
It is very similar to the original one though I had to redesign it to make it printable.



The steel bracket was cut in an old shutter hinge, and took some time to adjust and polish.
I did not use a square nut to secure the stop to the extrusion, but a standard M6 hex nut.
The whole thing worked like a charm; no play; smooth action [cool]
Next day I worked on an FS stop.
This time, as I don't have any original FS stop, I designed it from scratch.
I tried to make it as small and simple as possible.



The extrusion being wider than the one of the MFT, an M6 nut cannot be used alone to hold the stop.
Therefore, I added a plastic nut that traps the M6 one and grabs the channel without any risk of denting the aluminium.
The stop catches the saw base at its corner so a round notch was added for better contact.
Again, it worked fine and I printed a few of them for my other tracks.
If you have access to a 3D printer, the 3D models and build instructions are detailed and shared on thingiverse.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:921862
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:921136
Now it's time to go back cutting wood [wink]
Tom