Festool FS Guide Rail vs Mafell F Guide Rail

[Cheese]

Cheese, so.. now you say that I (we) need to buy 2-two double squares.. cause they work so well in pairs  [big grin]. Pocket friendly parallel guides they are!
How do you like the Mafell clamps? I see Bessey are now offering them with their name on them, I like the features..

Ya that's funny Festita...the original thread was "Why do you need a Starrett double square?" and here, less than a week later, we've since morphed into why we need 2 Starrett double squares.  [big grin]

This method is real slick and will provide uniform cut widths.

I rather liken it to the original TSO GRS-16 guide rail square who's form was reminiscent of a Starrett combination square. That works from one edge only...then later TSO came out with their GRS-16 PE which resembles a Starrett double square. That works from both edges.

The new Mafell clamps are really nice...better than I thought they'd be. I originally contacted Mafell and asked to purchase the original metal screw version because they were metal and just seemed to be more robust than the newer glass reinforced nylon clamps. The metal screw clamps were basically obsoleted and I now know the reason why. These are a lot nicer.

The only thing to note is that if you place the Mafell rail on the pencil line and then tighten the new clamps, they will move off the pencil line by about .25-.50 mm.

Thinking about it, maybe that's the reason Mafell ditched the screw clamp version. I would expect the screw clamp version to move more than the latest iteration because you're tightening the screw and the screw pad is moving around on the surface of the wood. Any movement of the pad would produce a movement of the rail.

The new clamps tighten by moving vertically so to minimize any rail movement.

 

[Cheese]

Recently i bought the Mafell Aerofix and am loving it.  Takes a little bit of getting used to it.  Like once you position the rail, have to start the saw so the vacuum kicks in providing the required clamping force giving it an additional second or so before you engage. But the joy of not using clamps makes the work flow go quick. Also the additional unit that's shipped let's you use it from the top allowing you to position the rail at floor level. 

So, I'm curious if once the Mafell rail is placed on the pencil line if the rail moves with the Aerofix?  I suspect not but I am curious.

The Mafell clamps will move the rail a smidgen.

 

[ScotF]

I have thought about the Mafell quick clamps. I have the Bosch version and they work well. The Mafell are spendy, but do more..

 

[Cheese]

Here's something that's difficult to do using a Festool guide rail because the clamp slot is 5" away from the splinter strip. On the Mafell guide rail that clamp slot to splinter strip distance is less than 1".

I was cutting up some wide birds eye maple boards into strips 1 1/2" wide and in this case I was left with a piece that was 1 19/32" wide. So I needed to clean up the edge and remove 3/32". Pretty simple to do with the Mafell rail. [big grin]

[attachimg=1]

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[attachimg=3]

[attachimg=4]

 

[Michael Kellough]

[member=44099]Cheese[/member] your drawer fronts are only 1-1/2” tall? Are you making flat files?

 

[Cheese]

[member=44099]Cheese[/member] your drawer fronts are only 1-1/2” tall? Are you making flat files?

LOL...ya with the 1/4" bottom ply and its dado there isn't a lot of space available... [big grin]

 

[FestitaMakool]

[member=44099]Cheese[/member] your drawer fronts are only 1-1/2” tall? Are you making flat files?

LOL...ya with the 1/4" bottom ply and its dado there isn't a lot of space available... [big grin]

For art, large photo prints and sketches of the coming projects I presume  [wink]

Thanks for the insight of the clamps, but I suppose if not careful the FT style will also shift the rail sideways. The potential shift of the Mafell I can see. You’ll need to have the clamp set to 90° to the rail below before engaging pressure due to the high rise of the lower foot? I did also notice that they are prone to slightly lift the center of the rail, since they attach at the edge of the workpiece.

 

[Cheese]

For art, large photo prints and sketches of the coming projects I presume  [wink]

Thanks for the insight of the clamps, but I suppose if not careful the FT style will also shift the rail sideways. The potential shift of the Mafell I can see. You’ll need to have the clamp set to 90° to the rail below before engaging pressure due to the high rise of the lower foot? I did also notice that they are prone to slightly lift the center of the rail, since they attach at the edge of the workpiece.

Well [member=71478]FestitaMakool[/member] you and [member=297]Michael Kellough[/member] are very good at hedging your bets...a wink and a nod, quite a pair to draw to.  [big grin] [big grin]

I knew Michael was going to be all over me on this posting but what the hey...I'll give him some more fodder tomorrow.  [poke]

When it comes to the rail shifting, you don't know what you don't know...and I'm still trying to understand the implications. Some of the implications are indeed deep in the weeds if you're used to machining metal versus wood. Wood is so much more forgiving.  [smile]

Because the Festool splinter strips become so "beavered up" through use, it's difficult or impossible to reliably place them on a pencil line and say they are "exactly" on the line. My experience has been that they are usually close, that being within 1/64" to 1/32".

The Mafell splinter strip on the other hand, because of the material it's made from, is extremely smooth and thus it's really simple to place it on the pencil line.

If accuracy in aligning a pencil line with a splinter strip is your mission in life  [smile]  then by all means the Mafell splinter strips complete that task in spades. It's dead nuts...

 

[Michael Kellough]

Looking forward to Sunday’s posts, reply #65 was less than satisfactory  [poke]

The congruence of the splinter guard to the kerf was what drew me to Festool in the first place. But we all know that relationship degrades, sometime rapidly. I learned to move the splinter guard out with the aid of a heat gun but I haven’t done that in more than a year to any of my rails.

Sometimes I stick a Post-It note to the bottom of the rail to get a fresh indication of where the kerf is but often I just use a steel rule butted against the aluminum rail to register the appropriate increment to the mark. A metric rule usually works best.

 

[Cheese]

Looking forward to Sunday’s posts, reply #65 was less than satisfactory  [poke]

The congruence of the splinter guard to the kerf was what drew me to Festool in the first place. But we all know that relationship degrades, sometime rapidly. I learned to move the splinter guard out with the aid of a heat gun but I haven’t done that in more than a year to any of my rails.

Sometimes I stick a Post-It note to the bottom of the rail to get a fresh indication of where the kerf is but often I just use a steel rule butted against the aluminum rail to register the appropriate increment to the mark. A metric rule usually works best.

Well [member=297]Michael Kellough[/member]  this doesn't answer your first issue but it does address the 2nd & 3rd issue...in a round-about fashion.  [big grin]

Recently, I've been using both the Festool rails & the Mafell rails with the MT 55. When using the Festool rail it's been very difficult to decide which part of the splinter strip I should align with the pencil mark because it's so chewed up. I should note that I changed the splinter strips on all the Festool rails last fall, so this shows the amount of damage over 1 year with only intermittent use.

[attachimg=1]

When I place a straight edge along the strip this is what it looks like. Dimensionally that's about a 1/32" gap.

[attachimg=2]

Here's what the Mafell looks like.

[attachimg=3]

Zooming out a bit this is the view. Note that there is a gap of various widths starting at the 2 3/4" mark and extending to the 10 13/16" mark. This makes aligning the splinter strip with a pencil mark difficult. The semi-solution would be to mark the splinter strip in 2 places and then use those marks to align to the pencil line.

[attachimg=4]

In comparison here's the Mafell rail.

[attachimg=5]

This issue started after I ripped several long pieces of maple to the same width using both brands of rails and noticed a difference in width between the pieces. The Mafell rails produced very uniform widths while the Festool rails produced scattered results. Some of the pieces from the Festool rails even had a different width on each end of the board. [mad]

I don't think the source of the problem is caused by the saws (MT 55, TSC 55 & HKC 55), by the manufacturer of the rails or by the fit of the saws on the rails. I think it's the material that Festool chose to use as a splinter strip is the issue. I believe it's HDPE and it tends to be on the brittle side.

It would be interesting to attach a material similar to what Mafell uses, to the Festool rail, cut the splinter strip and then compare. 

 

[heidtwd]

[member=44099]Cheese[/member]

Now that you have the rail, you should get the KSS40 to go with it.  It’s my most used saw.

+ 1

 

[Michael Kellough]

[member=44099]Cheese[/member] said, “ I don't think the source of the problem is caused by the saws (MT 55, TSC 55 & HKC 55), by the manufacturer of the rails or by the fit of the saws on the rails. I think it's the material that Festool chose to use as a splinter strip is the issue. I believe it's HDPE and it tends to be on the brittle side.

It would be interesting to attach a similar material, similar to what Mafell uses, to the Festool rail, cut the splinter strip and then compare.”

I’m still using the old black neoprene strips (so I can’t compare) and they get torn up plenty.

My guess is it’s the difference in the saws/blades. Difficult to say for sure since you can’t run the Festool saws on the Mafell rails but since there is so little erosion on the Mafell strip it’s unlikely that the Mafell saw contributed to the erosion of the Festool splinter guard.

The splinter guard only gets chewed up when the blade wanders out of it’s proper path so there will be commensurate damage to the wood. I haven’t used my cordless MT55 all that much but so far so good as far as the cut surface goes, and no noticeable wear of the (Bosch) splinter guard.

 

[Svar]

If accuracy in aligning a pencil line with a splinter strip is your mission in life  [smile]  then by all means the Mafell splinter strips complete that task in spades. It's dead nuts...

Unless you bevel it. Then it's 2 mm off. To clarify, this is caused by the saw, not the strips.

I don't know what you do with your FT splinter strips, but I used my cutting hardwood, ply, aluminum, plastics, solid surfaces with different blades. After years of use (hobby) I can still cut on a pencil mark within 0.25 mm. Sure, there are few bumps in it but most is perfectly fine for accurate alignment. The biggest problem was delamination from excessive heat after cutting thick aluminum.

I'm not disputing that Mafell strips are better, just that I don't see a problem with FT.

 

[Michael Kellough]

[member=44099]Cheese[/member]

Now that you have the rail, you should get the KSS40 to go with it.  It’s my most used saw.

+ 1

I get a little disappointed when I can’t make the cut with the KSS40.

One thing I like that I haven’t seen mentioned is that you can stand the whole thing up on it’s butt.

I just wish it was easier to set the bevel precisely.

 

[FestitaMakool]

The material in the Mafell splinter guard seems to be better suited.

One thing strikes me; do you cut your fresh/new splinter guards fully plunged?
- I know I did, per FT instructions.. but it think it’s wrong: I’ll cut as if I was cutting thin material next time, with the blade protruding maximum 1-2 mm’s below. It seems that the splinter guard easily gets tear out, and it might help cutting it plunged just below the thickness of the splinter guard.

 

[Michael Kellough]

I think the best results are as FestitaMakool said, but also have the blade actually cut wood. Still, that condition is short lived.

 

[mkasdin]

Looking forward to Sunday’s posts, reply #65 was less than satisfactory  [poke]

The congruence of the splinter guard to the kerf was what drew me to Festool in the first place. But we all know that relationship degrades, sometime rapidly. I learned to move the splinter guard out with the aid of a heat gun but I haven’t done that in more than a year to any of my rails.I don’t have a lot of faith in the splinter guard. I see it as more of a consumable. Last summer I worked on a house with no AC the glue doesn’t hold after a time from high heats. The only fix is to replace the strip.

Sometimes I stick a Post-It note to the bottom of the rail to get a fresh indication of where the kerf is but often I just use a steel rule butted against the aluminum rail to register the appropriate increment to the mark. A metric rule usually works best.

Well [member=297]Michael Kellough[/member]  this doesn't answer your first issue but it does address the 2nd & 3rd issue...in a round-about fashion.  [big grin]

Recently, I've been using both the Festool rails & the Mafell rails with the MT 55. When using the Festool rail it's been very difficult to decide which part of the splinter strip I should align with the pencil mark because it's so chewed up. I should note that I changed the splinter strips on all the Festool rails last fall, so this shows the amount of damage over 1 year with only intermittent use.

[attachimg=1]

When I place a straight edge along the strip this is what it looks like. Dimensionally that's about a 1/32" gap.

[attachimg=2]

Here's what the Mafell looks like.

[attachimg=3]

Zooming out a bit this is the view. Note that there is a gap of various widths starting at the 2 3/4" mark and extending to the 10 13/16" mark. This makes aligning the splinter strip with a pencil mark difficult. The semi-solution would be to mark the splinter strip in 2 places and then use those marks to align to the pencil line.

[attachimg=4]

In comparison here's the Mafell rail.

[attachimg=5]

This issue started after I ripped several long pieces of maple to the same width using both brands of rails and noticed a difference in width between the pieces. The Mafell rails produced very uniform widths while the Festool rails produced scattered results. Some of the pieces from the Festool rails even had a different width on each end of the board. [mad]

I don't think the source of the problem is caused by the saws (MT 55, TSC 55 & HKC 55), by the manufacturer of the rails or by the fit of the saws on the rails. I think it's the material that Festool chose to use as a splinter strip is the issue. I believe it's HDPE and it tends to be on the brittle side.

It would be interesting to attach a similar material, similar to what Mafell uses, to the Festool rail, cut the splinter strip and then compare.

 

[Cheese]

The material in the Mafell splinter guard seems to be better suited.

One thing strikes me; do you cut your fresh/new splinter guards fully plunged?
- I know I did, per FT instructions.. but it think it’s wrong: I’ll cut as if I was cutting thin material next time, with the blade protruding maximum 1-2 mm’s below. It seems that the splinter guard easily gets tear out, and it might help cutting it plunged just below the thickness of the splinter guard.

For both Festool & Mafell rails, I placed the rail on a sheet of foam and then cut the splinter strip so that the kerf in the foam was maybe 3-4 mm deep.

 

[Cheese]

This is just a heads-up for those of you that are using a Mafell track saw and rail. Be careful when you use the clamp slot that is closest to the splinter strip (Mafell rails have 2 clamp slots in them) if you're beveling at the same time.

This happened as I was cutting finished ply at a 15º bevel angle.  [eek]

[attachimg=1]

[attachimg=2]

 

[FestitaMakool]

It might just be me, but you need new twist knob [scared]