Has anyone built Gary Katz's assembly and cutting table

Someone had a question about the spacer/t-bolt, so here is a photo of one broken down to clarify the parts. The smaller spacer is 1/8" shorter than the big one, which provides clearance for the t-bolt shoulder. Without the extra clearance the shoulder hits the spacer before the t-bolt is snug on the 80/20.

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RMW
 
I am building some rails like RMW built for my MFT.  I was playing with some 8020 but I haven't got the 1/2 inch mdf yet. I make my own dogs and spacers and small aluminum parts on my little 1929 South Bend lathe but I'm kind of lazy so I don't have them made yet either. Here's my point of this conversation. If you have enough Festool clamps you can fasten the 8020 rails to the MFT through the clamp holes. This seems to work at least as good as the t-nuts, noobs and spacers, and maybe faster. I just need another half dozen Festool clamps. LOL.
Gary
 
Just wondering if anyone ended up making these extension arms and what your feedback/experience is/was?

I ended up making a full cutting table from 8020 where the extension arms/rails/whatever can be screwed down in different configurations. Still tweaking it a bit but it is a handy addition to my MFT.

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Anyway, just curious to see if anyone else ended up using these things.

RMW
 
I'm not familiar with his table , but I build a rolling table that I use for breaking sheet goods down and an outfeed table / assembly table . It works great for everything I use it for , I was using the grid system you see here to lay my sheets on but I have since switched over to foam boards . I find it easy to go back and forth with the foam then setting up the grid .

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Busy weekend in the shop & finishing one work area in my office/workshop. I had some old cabinets I built a long while back for the big shop before moving to the shore & the little shop. They got re-purposed into my office mainly because I did not have anywhere else for them. This area is dual purpose, during the day I have a place to spread out files (my work table/desk is nearby), while at night I can monkey around with my little gadgets or do leather work, tie flies, etc. The top does not need to be fancy but I wanted it to look okay, the cabinets probably need a fresh paint job. I finally got around to making the top for them this weekend and midway thru yesterday I thought it was going to be a disaster, in the end it turned out okay.

This relates somewhat to this thread because I used the the cutting extensions in a couple new ways for some awkward cuts. In this setup I needed to trim one leg of a mitered corner piece after I had glued up the miters:

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These pieces were between 5-6' long so I used my 2700mm rail, the extensions also supported the end of the rail. I then had to cut them to length so I just flipped the material around and used the Woodpecker square to align the short rail:

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Lastly, while the MFT is not a great platform for hand planing it works in a pinch, I have one oddball extension where I had tried gluing 1/2 by 1/2 maple strips to it before I settled on using the MDF, I use it for stuff where I need to clamp something to the side:

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The net result worked out okay:

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In case you didn't guess, the material is 5" Jatoba flooring I picked up on closeout. The cabinets sit 3" out from the wall so I have space to run wire/cable behind them, there are 2 sections that pop out for access.

Not bad for < $100 in material, pre-finished to boot!

RMW

 
Gary, you can buy a lot of bushings, bolts, knobs & washers for what a Festool clamp costs.

Rusty

 
Richard,
I have made up 4 42" ones and 2 34" ones but as yet have not used them.  I did get some of the bushing from the source posted (3/4 dia. x 5/8 long), they work great.  Hope to start doing some cutting on them soon.

Rusty
 
Richard, you continue to impress!

Pretty inventive. 

Q:  To adequately support a full sheet of plywood, how many arms do you use?  4 x 36, or more?

Glancing at your photos, and that is a half sheet, yes?

Thanks

Tom
 
Thanks Tom.

For cross-cutting a full sheet of plywood I use (4) 42" arms. The frame (table?) in it's current iteration is just under 60" long. If I attach the arms end-to-end at the front/rear of the frame I have 84" of support in 2 parallels roughly 30" apart, if that makes any sense. I always try to cut across the support arms at 90 degrees to the MDF.

To rip a full sheet I normally turn the arms 90 degrees so I have all 4 parallel which give me about 42" deep by
 
Richard, I made 4 of the arms in about 40" length (8020 sale). Modified slightly so that the mdf fence is flush w/ the bottom of the arms.

Used them to cut down a 4x8 sheet with no difficulty. There are obviously a number of ways to arrange the arms so as to faciliate the particular cuts.

At any rate, one of the most simple, effective, jigs I have ever used.

As far as I am concerned, these are a MUST for the MFT/3 and it's older sibs.

Truly brilliant.

Surgeon General's warning: Side effects: may induce addiction to 8020 extrusions.  ;)
 
fastbike said:
Richard, I made 4 of the arms in about 40" length (8020 sale). Modified slightly so that the mdf fence is flush w/ the bottom of the arms.

Used them to cut down a 4x8 sheet with no difficulty. There are obviously a number of ways to arrange the arms so as to faciliate the particular cuts.

At any rate, one of the most simple, effective, jigs I have ever used.

As far as I am concerned, these are a MUST for the MFT/3 and it's older sibs.

Truly brilliant.

Surgeon General's warning: Side effects: may induce addiction to 8020 extrusions.  ;)
Click to expand...

Too True! [doh]

The good news is that the extrusions can be re-purposed as needed. Most of my 80/20 is on it's second or 3rd job, they just keep getting shorter and collecting more holes. Every now and then I buy a couple 8' sticks to refill the pipeline.

Glad you found them to be useful.

RMW
 
Richard/RMW said:
fastbike said:
Richard, I made 4 of the arms in about 40" length (8020 sale). Modified slightly so that the mdf fence is flush w/ the bottom of the arms.
Click to expand...

Couple of questions.  By flush with the bottom of the arms, do you mean, flush against the table, or in terms of length (40" long);    it's not flush on the support / cutting side, I'm guessing!

I've got 4 x 48" extrusions coming.  No harm in a little extra length, I'm guessing.

On the 8020 sales, is that all through the ebay site, or via 8020.com or whatever it is.  The sale items weren't jumping out at me.
Click to expand...
 
You are correct that it is flush on the table side. I left the sacrificial fence 1/2" proud of the extrusion on the cutting side.

With 8020, you need to go to the seller page (8020 grage sale), then you can sort by what youi're looking for or just the sale stuff.

The length isn't too critical. My pieces were on sale. I would recommend closer to 40" than 36" to allow more flexibility.

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Couple of questions.   By flush with the bottom of the arms, do you mean, flush against the table, or in terms of length (40" long);    it's not flush on the support / cutting side, I'm guessing!

I've got 4 x 48" extrusions coming.   No harm in a little extra length, I'm guessing.

On the 8020 sales, is that all through the ebay site, or via 8020.com or whatever it is.   The sale items weren't jumping out at me.

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Just came across this post and thought I would show you what I concocted for my MFT/3 after seeing a number of options on Youtube and the Fog.  I use my garage and require a dry day to do any real cutting in my driveway. I wanted to do something to enlarge my MFT/3 but needed it to be simple, cost effective, and easy to store. These pictures show the storage and assembly. I use two quick clamps to secure to my table top so there is no tipping. My parallel guides and extensions fit just right. I have only just started to use this setup and am really enjoying it.

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Fletchtool  
 
fletchtool said:
Just came across this post and thought I would show you what I concocted for my MFT/3 after seeing a number of options on Youtube and the Fog.  I use my garage and require a dry day to do any real cutting in my driveway. I wanted to do something to enlarge my MFT/3 but needed it to be simple, cost effective, and easy to store. These pictures show the storage and assembly. I use two quick clamps to secure to my table top so there is no tipping. My parallel guides and extensions fit just right. I have only just started to use this setup and am really enjoying it.

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Fletchtool  
Click to expand...

Excellent!  Now that you are using it do you feel that you needed to double the ply?
 
Hi Ron, That is a good question. This setup feels very solid with what I have used it for, but I haven't cut any full sized sheet material yet. From a strength perspective, I suppose you could use a single piece of ply.  I have always liked to double or at least support a single piece of ply for the additional stability.  I choose the double 3/4" ply to accommodate the 3/4" dowels I used to position the pieces on my MFT. I like solid and I like stability.

Thanks for your comment.

Fletchtool
 
fletchtool said:
Hi Ron, That is a good question. This setup feels very solid with what I have used it for, but I haven't cut any full sized sheet material yet. From a strength perspective, I suppose you could use a single piece of ply.  I have always liked to double or at least support a single piece of ply for the additional stability.  I choose the double 3/4" ply to accommodate the 3/4" dowels I used to position the pieces on my MFT. I like solid and I like stability.

Thanks for your comment.

Fletchtool
Click to expand...

I really do like your construction. 
My thinking was for a set that was a little cheaper & more disposable -- possibly using Domino tenons instead of 3/4" dowels. 
 
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