mylcs143 said:
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
Hi John,
[welcome] 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,
