John Stevens
Member
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2007
- Messages
- 815
Just for what it's worth, here are pics of a couple of jigs I made a while back. They're for making it easier to measure when sawing with the guide rail. If the rubber strip has worn a little or has been gouged, sometimes it's not so accurate to simply place the edge of the rubber strip on your mark. These gauges allow you to know exactly where the cut line will be as long as you use the same blade that you used when you made them. (If you find these useful, you may want to make a pair for each blade you use.)
The first one is just a piece of ply or MDF about 80mm (~ 3") wide and somewhat longer than the width of your guide rail. Put two nails, screws, dowels, dominos, whatever, at the back edge. Then place the piece under your guide rail with the nails (or whatever) registered against the back of the rail and make the cut. Repeat for the second one. This gauge has two uses. The first for cutting sheet goods. Set it on the cut line, then register a stop against the back end. (A "C" pr "F" clamp works fine for this.) Now you can remove the gauge and put down your guide rail, registering the back of the guide rail to the stop. Do this at the front and back end of the cut, and the edge of your saw blade will be right on the cut line. In another thread, Dave Ronyak came up with an idea for using two of these gauges in a pair to make duplicate narrow rip cuts. See messages 16 & 17 here:
http://festoolownersgroup.com/index.php?topic=3148.msg35432#msg35432
The second gauge is the same as the first but has a hook added to the front. It's for when you want to use a ruler or story stick on the MFT but you don't want to do the subtraction necessary to register it from the back edge of the guide rail. If you already have a rule on your MFT fence, this gauge can be helpful whenever you want to recalibrate it.
Hope this is helpful to someone. I'm up way past my bed time, so if this explanation isn't clear, please let me know
Regards,
John
The first one is just a piece of ply or MDF about 80mm (~ 3") wide and somewhat longer than the width of your guide rail. Put two nails, screws, dowels, dominos, whatever, at the back edge. Then place the piece under your guide rail with the nails (or whatever) registered against the back of the rail and make the cut. Repeat for the second one. This gauge has two uses. The first for cutting sheet goods. Set it on the cut line, then register a stop against the back end. (A "C" pr "F" clamp works fine for this.) Now you can remove the gauge and put down your guide rail, registering the back of the guide rail to the stop. Do this at the front and back end of the cut, and the edge of your saw blade will be right on the cut line. In another thread, Dave Ronyak came up with an idea for using two of these gauges in a pair to make duplicate narrow rip cuts. See messages 16 & 17 here:
http://festoolownersgroup.com/index.php?topic=3148.msg35432#msg35432
The second gauge is the same as the first but has a hook added to the front. It's for when you want to use a ruler or story stick on the MFT but you don't want to do the subtraction necessary to register it from the back edge of the guide rail. If you already have a rule on your MFT fence, this gauge can be helpful whenever you want to recalibrate it.
Hope this is helpful to someone. I'm up way past my bed time, so if this explanation isn't clear, please let me know
Regards,
John