CSC SYS 50 with Woodpeckers Auxiliary Rip Fence (or just WP Super Track)

[brendanfalkowski]

I got the Woodpeckers Auxiliary Rip Fence for my Festool CSC SYS 50 Table Saw, and I can confirm they're a good match.
https://www.woodpeck.com/woodpeckers-auxiliary-rip-fence.html

After looking at options for a few months, I decided this was better than going all-in on the Bow fence system. The package of accessories (infeed, outfeed, clamps, feather boards) is priced well, but it seems others had problems getting Bow's fence to clamp squarely. I'm guessing the milled clamp slots are too high for the low CSC fence. This probably isn't an issue on larger jobsite/cabinet saws.
https://www.festoolownersgroup.com/...ies/bow-xt-xtender-fence-with-the-csc-sys-50/

The WP fence + blocks were $129 pre-sale, so I rolled the dice hoping everything would line up.

Out Of The Box

• Extrusion is straight and flat.
• Packaging had a 4" crush zone on each end preventing any damage.
• Machining + anodizing on the blocks is high quality.
• Hardware all included.
• Infeed support is steel (not plastic) with a coating. Mine is chipped a bit by the holes.

Attaching To The Saw

• All three blocks fit on the table.
• Only two can be clamped (back two).
• The CSC fence has too many knobs and protrusions near the front, so it can't be clamped there.
• I don't think this affects stability at all, but leave the front block unclamped so it can't bend the track.
• The length (48") is just right for infeed + outfeed support.

Which clamps?

• My clamps are 6" Bessey ratchet clamps (for track saws).
• They work fine, but I don't like how coarse the tension between teeth is.
• I'm afraid one click too far will crack the Festool fence (it's only aluminum).
• The lever handle can also contact the table before tension is sufficient so it's easier to clamp with the CSC extension table down.
• I would be happier using normal screw-type clamps for finer control.

Quick note on extrusions

Every third-party extrusion I found that could be an auxiliary fence seems to have non-standard channels in width/depth/throat. They're all within 2mm of each other, but that's enough to make it suck as a consumer. You have to pick between proprietary oval nuts, t-bolts, hex bolts, or custom inserts. The only standardized extrusion seems to be track saw rails.

I figured if I buy anything else in the fence/jig arena there's a good chance I'll use Woodpeckers hardware again (Super Track with oval nuts or hex bolt knobs). At the time of purchase the WP Indexable Miter Gauge was just released, so I got that too because it shares the Super Track slot dimensions.

Good, bad, ugly

• The fence + blocks do exactly what they're supposed to. No regrets.
• I want to get JessEm roller guides (one of the three and rig this all together).
• WP should have offered two supports for infeed + outfeed. I'd always want both installed for the CSC's tiny table.
• Having said that, I think Bow designed a better support with eased leading/trailing edges.
• I'm going to make (2) wider supports and copy that feature.
• You lose 2" of rip capacity (width) with the fence + blocks installed.

Block-less attachment

Track clamps (the head part) do not fit in any extrusion channels (best I can tell) that could be used as a rip fence. The Festool/Bessey clamps nearly do, but need about 0.2mm ground off to fit WP Super Track channels. They're plated so I don't really want to do that. I'm going to order Bessey EZR track clamps with fiberglass/plastic heads and mill the guide posts down to fit. I believe this will allow using the WP Super Track without the attachment blocks on the CSC fence. So you'd only lose 3/4" of ripping width. If that works it'll be a near perfect rip fence add-on, and you can order in different lengths as desired.

Block-less AND clamp-less attachment (yes, it works)

See my next comment with extra photos. With a few caveats this will be perfectly fine for a lot of people.

Conclusion and Photos

I'm happy with the purchase. It complements the size of the CSC SYS 50 really well, and conforms to the spacing issues latching on the CSC fence out of the box. There's still a lot of opportunity to extend this with homemade jigs, and I feel pretty good choosing the Super Track as a base.

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[brendanfalkowski]

Just edited my last post, but repeating this with photos:

Block-less AND clamp-less attachment (yes, it works)

So, you can just buy Super Track and it's realistically all you need. Not perfect but perfectly usable. The extrusion channels don't line up to the Festool fence's screw, but the Super Track channels do capture the CSC fence nut and tighten. The fence will be 7mm or 9/32" above the table. If you're cutting material thicker than 12mm or 1/2" I would feel totally safe using this config.

The CSC rip fence has milled reference surfaced about 10" long, so when tightened down the WP Super Track cinches up square and tight. It's exactly what you want, just a bit off the table.

The CSC miter head is plastic, and while everything fits + tightens the same way (same gap) it does flex. The plastic head doesn't have a good reference surface and the WP Super Track is tall, so you can flex it out of square by hand. I don't think this matters in use, but it doesn't feel good like the rip fence.

The 48" Super Track is comically huge of course on the sliding miter, but you could order a 12" or 24" length. It's taller than the CSC blade projects (3.85" vs 2") so you could cut straight through a long extrusion and it would stay rigid enough. With a sacrificial MDF face you'd have an absolutely killer wide miter gauge capacity for cutting shelf dados.

Caveats

This does mean the bottom of the fence is not level with the table anymore. So you can't use the infeed support without a spacer, but you can easily make a 7mm spacer.

Why not just bolt a 7mm spacer to the entire bottom length of the Super Track? You can and it'll be a perfect, smooth gliding, long, tall CSC fence. I'm 100% going to do that with HDPE.

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[JRM76]

All much appreciated info & generally agree. BUT, why not buy any 2-4” extrusion with tracks on 3 or 4 sides (WP, Rockler, Incra, etc.), drill two slightly large holes through the CSC50 fence at the height of the T-Track and so the extrusion rests on the table top, and bolting through the holes into nuts/T-nuts in the T-tracks of the extrusion? Use headless bolts and place wing nuts on the outside of the fence to make attachment tool-less. Flat sheet metal/1/4” plywood bolted to the bottom of the extrusion before & after the table top will “extend” the table to as long as the extrusion (longer even). Seems to me much easier, cheaper, and frankly more elegant than fighting with the overly long (my opinion) WP fence and one doesn’t have all that right-side-of-the-fence hardware. Think about it as making your own Bow-fence-for-bandsaws type solution without all the bulk, weight, and pieces getting in your way.

ONLY problem I see is if the CSC50 fence has a fore/aft moving internal clamp clamping the fence from front to back that is at the exact same height as the T-track(s); I’ll have to investigate. I have the Bow fence for my 14-inch bandsaw… and it’s terrific … something similar would be welcome on the CSC50.

AS AN ASIDE… a home-made sliding 3’-wide cut-off table that clamps into the miter slot is a God-send; highly recommended (mine has 1/4” MDF base, 3” front & back rock maple “rails”, & rear blade guard).

 

[brendanfalkowski]

[member=69711]JRM76[/member] — You probably could drill through the Festool fence, and attach any extrusion. That's how the Festool rip extrusion attaches with a through bolt + thumb knob. I didn't want to drill through the Festool extrusion so it stays smooth, and the problem with bolting any random extrusion to the Festool sub-fence is the cast nubs have to align with a channel.

I looked at buying a second SYS 50 fence assembly to modify for that purpose, but as best I could tell it's a $300 replacement part from Germany. It wasn't clear if you could actually order it without contacting support.

The only extrusion I found that is a direct-fit to the SYS 50 extrusion's channel position is on Incra miter fences. That didn't really offer what I wanted from the rip fence (extra long + infeed/outfeed support + ability to mount JessEm guides).

Because I assemble/disassemble my saw every time (apartment woodworker) I didn't want fence swapping to require unbolting the default fence + bolting on another fence + reversing to clean up. It just seemed like that would be necessary with any modified extrusion off the shelf. Also if the channels happened to land badly on the SYS 50 sub-fence's milled mounting areas it may not stay square.

So I decided to just pay for the WP Auxiliary Rip Fence (whole kit) because clamping blocks seemed like the fastest/squarest solution. They clamp low by design and the SYS 50 fence assembly is short, so I was 95% sure it would work.

I'm definitely going to make a 7mm HDPE filler and keep that permanently bolted to the bottom of the WP Super Track to bypass the red blocks. The WP extrusion is tall, thick, and fairly priced in 12/24/36/48" lengths. For me 48" is perfect to give a long infeed and outfeed to the support foot on the SYS 50 stand.

I sketched a few ideas for table extensions that "drop in" but this upgrade was my first step at making the saw punch above its weight. I'd be interested to see what you came up with.

 

[JRM76]

All understood and band argue with your thinking. Mine is permanently set up and I’ve used the aforementioned sled a lot. Had a few projects that required repeated (dozens/hundreds) of 3”, 3-1/2”, and then +/- .5 mm, 1mm, 1/32”, 1/16”, & 3/32” adjustments…. Clamping a square to the sled and using WP set up blocks allowed me to fit 205 custom inserts without moving fences! But agree the table top and fence are on the short side for ripping although I’m looking for something more in the 3’/1m range and with 6-8” table height supports for and after. You’ve inspired me and I’ll put my thoughts/plans into priority and will report back on results. Like you… I’m into no fuss, no muss and the idea of hot glued bolts into an extrusion that match up to predilled chamfered holes in the CSC fence (no idea a replacement would be so expensive!) and a couple of wing-nuts or knurled knobs (I love the ones from Bench Dog in UK!) would make it easy on/easy off. By the way; Bench Dog’s CSC SYS fence extensions with support plates are to die for … excellent (especially their triangle to raise the rip guard fingers). Also like their Jessum rip adapters. It just works… and well.

 

[JRM76]

Sorry, Jessem Adapters are available from TSO, not Bench Dog.

 

[JRM76]

My ideas didn’t work as I hoped. To add a fence to the CSC SYS 50 fence requires two 6mm holes in the bottom 6-12mm of the fence to not interfere with the internal fence clamping mechanism. And of the half dozen extrusions I have there are no T-track inserts that close to the bottom. Again, critical to me would be a quick on-off fence extension that would have at-trick on the very bottom to add material supports at table height before/after the CSC SYS 50 table.

However, it is possible to make one out of wood. And if one only wants a quick fence extension beyond the table one of those clamps that are used for router guides (see right clamp in 1st picture) works well & fast. Unfortunately, it does not extend on both sides of the table (on or the other only) and does not have support to allow table top extensions.

 

[brendanfalkowski]

If all else fails there's always a wood/laminate fence (or sub-fence) option. Would be nice if Festool offered a long rip extrusion that's a direct fit.

I'm forging ahead with the WP Super Track and 7mm (ish) UHMW filler strip bolted to the bottom. Lee Valley's 3/8" x 3/4" x 48" UHMW strip is $17.50. That's the best price I could find for stock that's only slightly thicker and wider than the WP Super Track and 48" long without absurd shipping surcharges.
https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/sho...5efEkUkJxH0suyYgT9igA5vU60Euadxb&item=46J9016

I've used Lee Valley's UHMW before for a shooting board. It comes with light milling swirls that can be sanded out, but handplaning works better. Just watch out for plane tracks.

Only issue I didn't foresee is UHMW is very bendy at this size. It's going to need rabbets with a tight fit on the Super Track channel to stay aligned and bolts every 6-8". If I can mill it accurately I think it'll still work well. May be a few weekends later for me, but I'll be a making a routing jig to thickness + rabbet as accurately as I can.

 

[jeh]

Isn't there a British company that sells auxiliary rip fences as well? I was in contact with a company, who I though was UK based, last spring who were planning one specifically for the CSC. Searched through email, but could not find anything.

 

[pixelated]

Isn't there a British company that sells auxiliary rip fences as well? I was in contact with a company, who I though was UK based, last spring who were planning one specifically for the CSC. Searched through email, but could not find anything.

Benchdogs sells one.

 

[brendanfalkowski]

Benchdogs has a CSC miter fence + adapter plate, but it won't work for the ripping fence.
https://benchdogs.co.uk/collections/csc-fence-and-adaptor-plate/products/csc-fence-and-adaptor-plate

The plate needs to be longer than the Festool sub-fence it attaches to. The plate is only wide enough to clear the miter head, but the silver knobs won't clear the Festool rip fence's length. They could make a long adapter plate with the same extrusions though. Seems like that would be an easy product to add to their kit.

 

[alltracman78]

That is one tiny saw table....

 

[Serhii_R]

Rip fence + supporting in feed and out feed table, hope photos will be self explanatory.

 

[Steve Brooker]

Brendan

Did you manage to fit the JessEm hold downs to the Woodpeckers SuperTrack and if so which of the three versions and how did they attach and did they work well?

 

[cpw]

Every third-party extrusion I found that could be an auxiliary fence seems to have non-standard channels in width/depth/throat. They're all within 2mm of each other, but that's enough to make it suck as a consumer. You have to pick between proprietary oval nuts, t-bolts, hex bolts, or custom inserts. The only standardized extrusion seems to be track saw rails.

I'm fairly certain the WP tracks (if they are the same extrusion they use for most other products) can use standard 1/4-20 bolts in their extrusions.  Woodpeckers sell knobs that thread onto them for making jigs, etc.  I've used the WP knobs together with standard Johnny bolts from the home depot to connect to the MFT/3 front extrusion for mounting my Vac SYS.

 

[brendanfalkowski]

Brendan, Did you manage to fit the JessEm hold downs to the Woodpeckers SuperTrack and if so which of the three versions and how did they attach and did they work well?

Hi Steve, I researched this to death and chose the JessEm Flex guides —https://amzn.to/40Dqzzy

• JessEm Table Saw Guides $339 —https://amzn.to/4glLBby
• JessEm Precision Guides (aluminum) $120 —https://amzn.to/4hyBEsc
• JessEm Flex Guides (fiberglass/nylon) $105 —https://amzn.to/40Dqzzy

The Flex and Precision guides are essentially the same design/application, except the Precision is milled aluminum (JessEm's original design) and the Flex is fiberglass/nylon. Both have the same adjustment range and attachment hardware. From my research the Flex actually works better because it has a few mm of play in the arms holding the wheels. The aluminum version relies on compression in the O-rings only, so your workpiece needs to be very consistent thickness/flatness. Price wasn't a contributing factor for me ($105 vs $120) on the smaller guides. JessEm's stainless t-bolts (really nicely milled) fit the WP SuperTrack with no issues.

I would buy the Table Saw Guides for a cabinet saw, but decided against it for the CSC SYS 50. The JessEm mounting track's hardware doesn't fit 1/4-20 t-track extrusions from my research, so it either needs modifications or an in-between plate (people often use BB plywood with switchable magnets for the fence connection). I didn't want that much weight/force torquing the little nubs on the CSC's sub-fence, but it's doable:
https://www.festoolownersgroup.com/...ancements/csc-sys-50-with-jess-em-hold-downs/

After I bought the WP Auxiliary Fence kit, WP released a different fence extrusion specifically for cabinet saws called the WP Versa Fence. It's a wider extrusion that was designed to perfectly fit the JessEm Table Saw guide's hardware (without using the bottom plate). The carriage for each hold-down rides directly on the fence with the JessEm hardware. It looks like a good solution with a Teflon coating too, but I'm happy with the slightly taller WP SuperTrack fence for the CSC.
https://www.woodpeck.com/versa-fence-face-upgrade.html