Hi, I have been disappointed with the standard rail jointing system,
I rip down about between 20 and 30 sheets a month, mostly at the beginning of a project and then assemble the parts.
Why can't the rail ends be cut square? There are many reasons for discrepancies in the rail profile as the extrusion dies get worn/distorted due to friction heat etc But the ends not being square, that is just the manufacturer not bothering, which is slack as the rails are not cheap and because they have a festool sticker on them.
I found when just using the two joining rods, even a slight knock makes the rail out of alignment.
For all those that say get a longer rail...why? The whole point of having a system is that it can adapt to the work and be flexible. The festool approach of compact, easily transportable, accurate tools, is why I spend my hard earned cash on festools.
A long rail is impractical for the work i do, it needs to be looked after too much and a lot more trouble to transport.
I came up with a additional support to stiffen the jointed rails in my case two 1400 mm.
This was mark one,
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It worked OK but was a lot of fiddling to get the rails bang on straight .
This jig made it a bit easier flipping the rail end for end to cut in the other direction (like a festool version of a Bat'leth] the screws are small so can't tighten too hard in fear of stripping the heads or threads. This was made using a trend profile (crap version of festools MFS)
I made the shoes that go into the rail channel out of Aluminium
it was fine to get me out of a spot but the whole setup still wasn't robust and simple as it could be so.....
Mark two
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this was made with some Aluminium flat bar and some IKEA connector plates for sliding doors (I fit and custom modify lots and lots of Flatpack )
This time i cut a Festool connector rod in half instead of making my own shop built one. The steel slides better and the grub screws are easy to set.
the steel plates had M6 threads in them so just tapped the aluminum .
To get the rails to be straight I snapped a chalk line on my workbench then clamped the rails in place then double checked with my longest Level then triple checked with a laser line (really needed the rails to be straight )when all was set I drilled, tapped and ground all the parts in place.
The way I get the system to be repeatable is that I number all my rails so the two to be jointed are always the same. (I use two for the 2440 cuts, one 1400 for the 1220 cuts and a 800 rail for any small cross cuts.) Three 1400 rails saves a lot of time.
This system uses 3 rods two as normal one cut in half.
The time consuming thing was to find a stiff, easily repeatable low profile way to make this. I have much thicker profiles ( IKEA and skip diving) but they would have restricted the cutting depth, I have a TS55 so need every mm.
My rails and stiffener all fit in to one (over priced ) rail bag, along with a 1000mm steel rule, it does mean packing carefully, not to rip the bag or bust the zipper. I lightly filed the ends if all my rails to stop any tearing of the bag.
I hope this was of use.
Ill try and post more pics of mark 2 tomorrow.
Sorry if this in the wrong Place on the site
