FS 1400/2 + MFT board + dogs = Sawing into dog holes?

[Allano]

One very popular method for cross cuts is using a guide rail, a plunge saw and an MFT-style board with three or four bench dogs for aligning the guide rail and the work piece. Using a Festool guide rail (my FS1400/2 is 186 mm wide after trimming) and typical MFT hole patterns of either 96x96 or 100x100 mm, this will place the saw line right on top of a row of holes.

This just looks wrong to me. I would prefer having the saw line just to the right side of a row of holes. That would make it possible to place the rightmost "work piece bench dog" just to the left of the saw line for maximum control. And it would mean that I could cut slightly into the MFT board without worrying about damaging any holes.

The most radical solution to this would be a new MFT board with a 160x160 or 80x80 mm hole pattern. But I would be alone with that one, and a lot of tools for MFT boards wouldn't be compatible.

A more quick and dirty solution would be 20-30 mm wide spacers between the guide rail and the bench dogs, so the guide rail would be offset to the right and clear the holes. This can be done in clever ways and other, not so clever, more fiddly ways. Obviously, I can't be the only one with this desire. Others must have had the same thoughts like me and have come up with cool ideas. Or so I thought.

I have looked for commercial holding clips with built-in spacers. No, they don't exist. There are a lot of holding clips, for example the UJK Dog Rail Clips, but they are all designed to put the guide rail directly against the dog.

I have also looked for DIY videos, but no. Nobody have made anything like that. I have watched a bunch of videos on homemade MFT boards, and it looks like everyone are using one of two workarounds:
[list type=decimal]
[*]Use shims under the work piece so they don't cut into the board.
[*]Leave out a row of holes in the board, so there are no holes under the saw line.
[/list]
Method 1 is the one I have used until now and it feels suboptimal, with just too much fiddling around to get everything supported. I don't like method 2 either.

So before designing my own DIY spacer/clip solution, I need a sanity check:

Am I missing something here? Why is it that I am the only one in the world with this desire? Is there some error in my reasoning?

 

[ElectricFeet]

Am I missing something here? Why is it that I am the only one in the world with this desire? Is there some error in my reasoning?

Nope. You’re not. And nope.

IMO it’s a design flaw. But we’re stuck with it. 

[edit to add: To be fair, I suppose Festool wouldn’t have been able to see the explosion in use of dogs for the MFT. Their original drop down fence / hinge-bracket design can be positioned to miss the holes … though the hinge-bracket also has major design flaws of its own, so I guess they get no cigar for this in any scenario.) ]

My favourite solution is shown here:
View attachment 1

You add 2 extra holes at the top and bottom of the table (I added 8; 4 sets of 2) outside and equidistant from the standard holes. In reality, they don’t have to be equidistant, but must be absolutely square to the other holes, obviously. Use Pythagoras, or alternatively a simple flippable jig, to place them symmetrically.

Putting them further out like this also increases the workpiece sizes you can cut.

 

[Allano]

Wow. You are right. Thank you.

And since I already have a router adapter for my guide rail, I can easily use the router to make two new holes at equal distance from an existing hole row.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

That is also the method that [member=41421]Peter[/member] Parfit outlines in his version of a cutting station, using the Parfguide system. He also shows how to set it up for a few specific angles, leaving the cut path in the same place, moving the part.

 

[rst]

I wasn’t thrilled about cutting through the dog holes either so I moved the stops for the rail hinges to miss the holes. I went further by routing a dovetail slot that I installed a dovetail strip of UHMW.