Guide rail speed square... dedicated 90 for crosscutting and shelf dadoes.
- Thread starter James Watriss
- Start date
I've stated that I think the weakness in this speed square deal is the guide itself. For me it's not fun to fight the friction so to speak. I think the answer is an integrated guide/square that has no friction strip on the bottom. I'm talking about a ground up solution. We have a TS55 or 75 and a board. Now make something to help that saw cross cut that board.
With that in mind I made this functioning mock up.
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It's pretty rough. Just scrap really. But it gets the point across. The beauty is that it feels so good to use. You slide it to the mark effortlessly and cut away.
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I priced it out at about $4000 to have one of those internet parts places make a prototype out of a high grade aluminum. So that's not going to happen. But imagine a machined part that comes from the factory square and stays square. Anybody who makes aluminum triangles or squares could easily develop and market one of these. This is not an extrusion and I don't think an extrusion would have any role in this thing.
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It's easy to test for square with anything you like. The fence can be shimmed if necessary. A metal commercial version would be square out of the box and wouldn't need adjustment or calibration.
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It's got everything it needs and nothing it doesn't. An aluminum version would of course have a rubber strip. I think it would be a money maker. It would work out of the box with any saw that can run on a Festool guide and it would be easy to make a base plate attachment for those that don't. All you sacrifice is a little cutting depth. It would be easy to add clamping capability for routing.
With that in mind I made this functioning mock up.
[attachthumb=1]
It's pretty rough. Just scrap really. But it gets the point across. The beauty is that it feels so good to use. You slide it to the mark effortlessly and cut away.
[attachthumb=2]
I priced it out at about $4000 to have one of those internet parts places make a prototype out of a high grade aluminum. So that's not going to happen. But imagine a machined part that comes from the factory square and stays square. Anybody who makes aluminum triangles or squares could easily develop and market one of these. This is not an extrusion and I don't think an extrusion would have any role in this thing.
[attachthumb=3]
It's easy to test for square with anything you like. The fence can be shimmed if necessary. A metal commercial version would be square out of the box and wouldn't need adjustment or calibration.
[attachthumb=4]
It's got everything it needs and nothing it doesn't. An aluminum version would of course have a rubber strip. I think it would be a money maker. It would work out of the box with any saw that can run on a Festool guide and it would be easy to make a base plate attachment for those that don't. All you sacrifice is a little cutting depth. It would be easy to add clamping capability for routing.
score0matic
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Cool
you could just use 1/8" aluminum have a shop cut it out and then add an Al guide rib and anti friction strips to both sides at 90 deg. then there is no top or bottom as the saw can ride on both and either works as the stop against the wood further use an al blade and cut the jig it self for a splinter guide.... you can even have it anodized purple to go with the black (very dk blue) and green
Craig
you could just use 1/8" aluminum have a shop cut it out and then add an Al guide rib and anti friction strips to both sides at 90 deg. then there is no top or bottom as the saw can ride on both and either works as the stop against the wood further use an al blade and cut the jig it self for a splinter guide.... you can even have it anodized purple to go with the black (very dk blue) and green
Craig
Charimon said:
Yea, but I don't want to make one, I want to buy one... from Incra or Woodpeckers or Lee Valley or DeWalt or maybe Rick Christopherson at RTS. I bet he'd sell 10 times more of these than stops for the Domino. I want one that's dead square right out of the box, ready to rock. Festool could make one while blindfolded, riding a unicycle backwards, juggling cats, underwater and playing Stars and Stripes Forever on a kazoo. I'm just trying to prime the pump with my crude effort. But is anybody listening? Not a chance.
PaulMarcel
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fshanno said:
Honestly, I wouldn't listen to Stars and Stripes Forever on a kazoo, either. However, I would buy the crosscut guide you are talking about. My DeWalt T-square guide attachment is pretty much as square as I need it, but I'd have to take the friction tape off a guide to take full advantage, but I use that guide for ripping ply. :-/
Now, maybe on a fiddle...
Frank,
The biggest problem with machining these from an aluminum sheet, or plate, would be the cost of material. Even if they were made with 1/8 plate and the rib and fence were both bolted on, so that the thinnest possible materials could be used, there would still be quite a bit of cost. I do like the concept though.
BTW, for $4000 I'll make one for you and sacrifice a rail to do it. ;D
The biggest problem with machining these from an aluminum sheet, or plate, would be the cost of material. Even if they were made with 1/8 plate and the rib and fence were both bolted on, so that the thinnest possible materials could be used, there would still be quite a bit of cost. I do like the concept though.
BTW, for $4000 I'll make one for you and sacrifice a rail to do it. ;D
Brice Burrell
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greg mann said:
Greg, what do you think would be a lower cost alternative for this application?
Guys-
This is so simple......get a 1400 guide rail, remove the friction strips from the bottom, (or just cover them with packing tape to keep them from gripping) and bolt a fence to it made from 1/4 thick material, i.e. plastic, aluminum, wood, solid surface material, take your pick. Make the square "head" about 4" wide and 18-24 inches long. Bolt it to the bottom of the rail, set it square with a master square or whatever is close enough for you. Tighten the bolts and double check for square. Then drill through the aluminum guide rail and square head while bolted together square, ream the holes and dowel in place. It would be perfect, it would be festool and by using diffrent size rails, you could make any length you want. Any machine shop could do this for you for less then an hours time if you supplied all the pieces. If you want a nice machined aluminum head, a piece of 1/4 x 4 x 24 Mic-6 jig plate could be bought for about $25. Have one side milled straight, maybe 30-40$ and have hard anodized for toughness (at most 75$) Bingo, there you go.
Jay
This is so simple......get a 1400 guide rail, remove the friction strips from the bottom, (or just cover them with packing tape to keep them from gripping) and bolt a fence to it made from 1/4 thick material, i.e. plastic, aluminum, wood, solid surface material, take your pick. Make the square "head" about 4" wide and 18-24 inches long. Bolt it to the bottom of the rail, set it square with a master square or whatever is close enough for you. Tighten the bolts and double check for square. Then drill through the aluminum guide rail and square head while bolted together square, ream the holes and dowel in place. It would be perfect, it would be festool and by using diffrent size rails, you could make any length you want. Any machine shop could do this for you for less then an hours time if you supplied all the pieces. If you want a nice machined aluminum head, a piece of 1/4 x 4 x 24 Mic-6 jig plate could be bought for about $25. Have one side milled straight, maybe 30-40$ and have hard anodized for toughness (at most 75$) Bingo, there you go.
Jay
Michael Kellough
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Jay Evans said:
What is that? Some kind of aluminum I guess but I've never heard of it.
Bob Menefee
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Maybe some of the MFS template and a guide rail
Bob
Bob
score0matic
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fshanno said:
Grinning
Totally feel your pain brother. I really like Festool's products .......but, they suffer from "group think" just like any one else. then again i don't know of another company who has their ear to their clients like they do here. at least we get to vent to them on their own website [eek]
Craig
Michael
Mic-6 jig plate is an industry standard tooling plate material for the tooling and toolmaking trades. You can buy it from dealers on EBay. it is a cast aluminum plate product, that is Blanchard ground to very close flatness and thickness tolerances. It is extremely easy to machine and drill and tap, ans comes in almost any size you want because the suppliers cut plates from large sheets. One of the best parts of tooling plate is that it can be Hard anodized, which will give a superficial surface hardness of something around 65 R/c type hardness. After hard anodizing, it will make a drill bit spark when you first try to drill through the surface. It hard and very tough, and the anodizing process will not alter the shape of the original part, so it remains accurate. Hard anodizing does add abort .001" to the surface of each side, so holes will be .002 smaller and need to be made oversize, and tapped holes need to be tapped .005 oversize before anodizing. Very handy stuff for making all kinds of tools and guides. It can be machined with care with a router and carbide bits, but one should be cautious and take very small bites with a robust set up (-clamp you guide rail down and take it very easy)
Hope this helps someone
Jay
Mic-6 jig plate is an industry standard tooling plate material for the tooling and toolmaking trades. You can buy it from dealers on EBay. it is a cast aluminum plate product, that is Blanchard ground to very close flatness and thickness tolerances. It is extremely easy to machine and drill and tap, ans comes in almost any size you want because the suppliers cut plates from large sheets. One of the best parts of tooling plate is that it can be Hard anodized, which will give a superficial surface hardness of something around 65 R/c type hardness. After hard anodizing, it will make a drill bit spark when you first try to drill through the surface. It hard and very tough, and the anodizing process will not alter the shape of the original part, so it remains accurate. Hard anodizing does add abort .001" to the surface of each side, so holes will be .002 smaller and need to be made oversize, and tapped holes need to be tapped .005 oversize before anodizing. Very handy stuff for making all kinds of tools and guides. It can be machined with care with a router and carbide bits, but one should be cautious and take very small bites with a robust set up (-clamp you guide rail down and take it very easy)
Hope this helps someone
Jay
jonny round boy
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Hille said:
No, I think people want one that works... [tongue]
Wood_Junkie
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Would it work to just add to installed pins, as shown in this crude picture?
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Along the same lines as how Kreg's miter gauge works here
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Adding some epoxy between the swinging arm and the fence would firm up the 90-degree locating if you wanted a permanently fixed angle.
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Along the same lines as how Kreg's miter gauge works here
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Adding some epoxy between the swinging arm and the fence would firm up the 90-degree locating if you wanted a permanently fixed angle.
James Watriss
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I'll go you one better.
Corner gusset bracket (plate, or cast) gets milled to mate with the t-slot in the underside of the guide rail. Possibly milled to mate with the shallow cuts that normally house the rubber strips. Hard ano aluminum extrusion then bolts to corner bracket, both to make manufacturing easier, and to enable the user to shim the fence in the event of an 'incident.'
I think the L-shaped Kreg extrusion would make a worthy candidate for the fence, A) because it's already anodized, B) because it's already loaded with T-tracks, which would make construction of this thing a lot easier.
Corner gusset bracket (plate, or cast) gets milled to mate with the t-slot in the underside of the guide rail. Possibly milled to mate with the shallow cuts that normally house the rubber strips. Hard ano aluminum extrusion then bolts to corner bracket, both to make manufacturing easier, and to enable the user to shim the fence in the event of an 'incident.'
I think the L-shaped Kreg extrusion would make a worthy candidate for the fence, A) because it's already anodized, B) because it's already loaded with T-tracks, which would make construction of this thing a lot easier.
I'm not even going to think about anything that already exists. This is a wish list thread so I'm wishing. I'm asking for the moon.
Here are some parameters that come to mind.
Festool won't do this, this kind of angular precision is not really something they are into plus it might cut into MFT sales and I don't blame them a bit for that. I just keep thinking about Incra or Leigh or Kreg or somebody like that. They could handle this, it's what they do. As far as Incra goes, it would be child's play compared to a lot of the stuff they already make. They would sell a TON of them. I would be first in line. They could work out some sort of lead screw thing for the dado gizmo. And once they got started there would be no stopping them. They could end up with a track saw division. I wonder if anybody at Incra has ever heard of a track saw? They must have seen the Festool booth at trade shows. I don't get it, why haven't they already done this? Of course it would indirectly compete with some of their own table saw products. Somebody needs to give the a call.
By the way, I've been using that ugly cross cut thing I made to cut out drawer bottoms. Whatever it is or isn't the tear out protection is CRAZY GOOD! At least until the sides wear down.
I made it like a zero clearance thing.
[attachimg=1]
And here's a cut on melamine. That's the nickle from my table saw.
[attachimg=2]
Both sides are pretty good.
Here are some parameters that come to mind.
- High precision - no more than 1/64th off at 48" - depending of course on the quality of the reference edge you are working off of.
- One piece construction - all inclusive - based on Festool guide dimensions but doesn't attach to, or require a separate guide.
- Light weight
- Low friction on bottom and under the saw.
- Will work with material thicknesses down to 1/4" on a table top.
- Tear out protection at least on the left side under the saw.
- Can be clamped down to a table top or clamped at any of the three vertices to the piece being cut.
- Three sizes. 50", 25" and 15" max crosscut.
- Optional detachable precision stops. Two models, both start at 10", one goes out to 36", another out to 72"
- Optional Dado/rabbet stop - It measures bit diameter and locks that value in. Then you lock down one side of the trench on your mark. Then you set the piece that will go in the dado into it and use that width to lock the stop for the other side of the trench. You make a pass on each side against the stops then plow out the middle. Bingo, perfect dado. And I have no idea at all how this would work. Perhaps as some sort of mondo universal router sled. But it would be very very cool and remember, we're shooting for the moon.
Festool won't do this, this kind of angular precision is not really something they are into plus it might cut into MFT sales and I don't blame them a bit for that. I just keep thinking about Incra or Leigh or Kreg or somebody like that. They could handle this, it's what they do. As far as Incra goes, it would be child's play compared to a lot of the stuff they already make. They would sell a TON of them. I would be first in line. They could work out some sort of lead screw thing for the dado gizmo. And once they got started there would be no stopping them. They could end up with a track saw division. I wonder if anybody at Incra has ever heard of a track saw? They must have seen the Festool booth at trade shows. I don't get it, why haven't they already done this? Of course it would indirectly compete with some of their own table saw products. Somebody needs to give the a call.
By the way, I've been using that ugly cross cut thing I made to cut out drawer bottoms. Whatever it is or isn't the tear out protection is CRAZY GOOD! At least until the sides wear down.
I made it like a zero clearance thing.
[attachimg=1]
And here's a cut on melamine. That's the nickle from my table saw.
[attachimg=2]
Both sides are pretty good.
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