tarpon2007
Member
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2008
- Messages
- 9
I just bought the parallel guides to help with sheet good cutting and parallel rip cuts. So far very pleased with them. Do have a couple of comments/solutions to some issues I've got with the guides.
1. The small cast-in arrow on the stops is hard to see and set relative the scales on the guide bar. I highlighted the cast-in arrow area with some bright red paint - this helps. n.b. this is the same fix I did on my Leigh dovetail machine some years ago when they used cast-in marks.
2. To straddle a 48 or 49 inch sheet, a guide rail longer than 55 inch is needed. Simple fix, buy a 75 incher!!
3. The 26 inch +/- max rip capacity of the FS-PA is too small for many of my needs. To make it a little more, the modification suggested by Brice Burrell elsewhere on this site helps (attaching the small guide bars from the FS-PA-VL narrow rip guide to the ends of the main guide bars). I inquired of Festool the price & availability of replacement longer guide bars ( P/N's 496156 and 496157) to extend the existing ones and was told they are ~ $44 each. Checking other users online, I found the solution offered by fshanno on talkfestool.com to be a very do-able fix ( constructing extensions to the longer guide bars ). Longer guide bars do need support tabs so they don't droop, however.
1. The small cast-in arrow on the stops is hard to see and set relative the scales on the guide bar. I highlighted the cast-in arrow area with some bright red paint - this helps. n.b. this is the same fix I did on my Leigh dovetail machine some years ago when they used cast-in marks.
2. To straddle a 48 or 49 inch sheet, a guide rail longer than 55 inch is needed. Simple fix, buy a 75 incher!!
3. The 26 inch +/- max rip capacity of the FS-PA is too small for many of my needs. To make it a little more, the modification suggested by Brice Burrell elsewhere on this site helps (attaching the small guide bars from the FS-PA-VL narrow rip guide to the ends of the main guide bars). I inquired of Festool the price & availability of replacement longer guide bars ( P/N's 496156 and 496157) to extend the existing ones and was told they are ~ $44 each. Checking other users online, I found the solution offered by fshanno on talkfestool.com to be a very do-able fix ( constructing extensions to the longer guide bars ). Longer guide bars do need support tabs so they don't droop, however.
