how to efficiently rip a bunch of strips with a track saw
- Thread starter Paul G
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markorjack
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Sorry if it came across as America bashing, it certainly wasn't meant to.Paul G said:
Pointing out differences is certainly not "bashing".
Conveying tone on the Internet can be difficult, hence the use of smiley faces
As I said, to me it is unfathomable that an advanced country can use a system not compatible with others.
You said it wouldn't be hard for Festool to include imperial scales, to me in the whole scheme of things it would be more worthwhile for the imperial system to become a thing of the past.
Again, I'm not bashing your country and sorry if I have offended you
How are you going with ripping thin strips?
markorjack said:Sorry if it came across as America bashing, it certainly wasn't meant to.Paul G said:
Pointing out differences is certainly not "bashing".
Conveying tone on the Internet can be difficult, hence the use of smiley faces
As I said, to me it is unfathomable that an advanced country can use a system not compatible with others.
You said it wouldn't be hard for Festool to include imperial scales, to me in the whole scheme of things it would be more worthwhile for the imperial system to become a thing of the past.
Again, I'm not bashing your country and sorry if I have offended you
Sorry if I misunderstood you. Thing is, while you may want Imperial to go away, I'm living in the middle of it, and prefer tools that are compatible with my culture. If I was going to Germany to buy my Festool then that burden is on my shoulders, but Festool is actively marketing to Americans and it shouldn't come as a surprise that Americans want things in inches in America.
markorjack said:
So far so good, have been using the Seneca parallel guides, bought them using INCRAs with SAE (Standard American Equivalent) rulers which is the more accurate term here than Imperial. Had the Festool versions been available in SAE I probably would have given them a try.
I'm an American and, shock and awe, I live in a midwestern red state where about 1/3rd of our state (no joke) doesn't have have 100% market penetration of indoor plumbing nor does it have electricity to every house. If anyone would have problems with SAE vs Metric units, you'd think it would be me. However...
I'm honestly sitting here trying to think of anything I do in daily life where I use SAE units in something I give any thought to at all. The only thing I can think of is that the speed limit and distance marker signs are in miles. So are my speedometer and odometer. However, they could switch to kilometers without affecting me at all since the speedo is dual-marked in MPH and KPH. I can actually switch the odometer to klicks and switch the outside markings (currently MPH) of the speedo to KPH simply by telling the car's computer that I've moved into the 20th Century and no longer need miles. Heck, I don't even care which they're using. All that actually matters is that the signs match the dash. As long as they're both counting the same, the units don't matter.
It's a fiction that the US is a SAE-only country. We gave up our unit purity at least 20 years ago. Metric products are all around us. They're just being labeled in SAE units to prevent startling people. It's about time that we gave up the pretense of being a SAE country, wised up, made ourselves more competitive on the world market, and started using metric wholesale.
So stop converting. Don't do anything in SAE anymore. The only reason to consider touching it is if a client gives you specs in SAE units. Convert them without telling the client and hand them back exactly what they asked for but without ever thinking in SAE.Paul G said:
I'm a mechanic in the US. I have no SAE tools other than the set of combination wrenches I inherited from my grandfather. I keep them 90% for sentimental reasons and 10% because a few of the *tools* I have use SAE fasteners to adjust the tool. I supposed I could just use an adjustable wrench for them but I'm a purist and adjustable wrenches are an abomination. None of the cars I get daily have any SAE fasteners left on them. I never need anything other than metric.
You don't buy pop in 2 liter bottles? Ever noticed how a lot of the products at places like Wal*Mao are being advertized as having just a bit extra in the bottle for your convenience? Yeah that 1.1 quart can of sauce you just bought is actually 1L. The "oil change packs" of filter+oil that are 5-and-a-bit quarts are exactly 5L in most cases. They just leave off the liter marking so as not to scare us Americans. Same with the slightly small bottles of pop we're getting in the convenience store cooler that are something weird in ounces but actually come out dead at 250mL and 350mL. You don't get Baltic Birch ply (the real stuff, not the junk from the big box stores) in panels that are 1500mm square? Your 3/4" plywood isn't actually 18mm thick? All medical supplies I've ever encountered are already in metric. Liters of saline, micrograms of drugs. Every doctor's office in the network takes my weight in kilograms and my height in centimeters. Heck, even the SAE no longer uses SAE units. They've switched to metric.
I'm honestly sitting here trying to think of anything I do in daily life where I use SAE units in something I give any thought to at all. The only thing I can think of is that the speed limit and distance marker signs are in miles. So are my speedometer and odometer. However, they could switch to kilometers without affecting me at all since the speedo is dual-marked in MPH and KPH. I can actually switch the odometer to klicks and switch the outside markings (currently MPH) of the speedo to KPH simply by telling the car's computer that I've moved into the 20th Century and no longer need miles. Heck, I don't even care which they're using. All that actually matters is that the signs match the dash. As long as they're both counting the same, the units don't matter.
It's a fiction that the US is a SAE-only country. We gave up our unit purity at least 20 years ago. Metric products are all around us. They're just being labeled in SAE units to prevent startling people. It's about time that we gave up the pretense of being a SAE country, wised up, made ourselves more competitive on the world market, and started using metric wholesale.
Williaty, regarding auto tools, I guess you don't work much on older US vehicles, I'd have a hard time wrenching on my 69 Nova without my SAE tools, but just replaced the blend door actuator on my '04 Merc and that maze of dash parts was all metric. I had a conversation with my neighbor about metric last week that reflects my point, he's an immigrant from Latvia and grew up metric and when here would reference sizes in metric to others and everyone would give him a blank stare, no one here could understand and visualize what he was talking about. He's ordering windows for his house and everything is in feet and inches. He changed to inches just so he could function in society here. You're right that metric has moved in in some areas, soda comes in 2L bottles but dairy is sold by gallons, quarts and pints as are most juices. Canned beverages like soda, beer, etc are still mostly ounces. For you to tell me to simply go metric and stop converting between the two makes no sense, I don't live in a bubble, and my neighbors experience reflects my point. If I woke up tomorrow and everything was metric I'd be fine with it, but this morning all the tape measures at Home Depot are still only in inches, life goes on.
Themistocles
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- May 7, 2013
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Hi
First post here....
I for one would be most interested by your set-up: is it as repeatable as efficient? And does it involve a fence on the waste side? That would be my best guess but then I'm sitting on the fence with respect to security implications. This being said Guido Henn seems to be doing something like this, so can't be totally wrong
First post here....
I for one would be most interested by your set-up: is it as repeatable as efficient? And does it involve a fence on the waste side? That would be my best guess but then I'm sitting on the fence with respect to security implications. This being said Guido Henn seems to be doing something like this, so can't be totally wrong
Themistocles
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Now you're teasing
Best guess is you're doing this based on power of twos then...
Best guess is you're doing this based on power of twos then...
tjbnwi said:
Themistocles said:
Tom is not teasing - he's just surprised again as stated in the first line of his original thread - his method really is simple: http://festoolownersgroup.com/festool-jigs-tool-enhancements/how-i-rip-ff-and-door-pieces/
Note: if link doesn't work Search for rip by user tjbnwi
tjbnwi said:
Yes thanks. I used the Seneca parallel guides that have extra stops to cut pieces smaller than the guide rail. Your method makes perfect sense though and would be better than the Seneca set up especially when you don't want to hassle with guides poking out.
Just to throw a liter of fuel on the fire . . .
SAE is the abbreviation for Society of Automotive Engineers.
Tom's method is brilliantly simple. The guiderail is 7.25" / 18.4 cm wide (measure yours to be sure).
Subtract the desired width of strip from the guiderail width. Make a spacer of the resulting width (e.g. for a 2" strip, make a 5.25" wide spacer).
Change the standard fence to tall mode and butt the spacer up to the fence.
Butt a straight edge of the material up to the spacer.
Butt the guide rail up to the fence.
Make your cut. The piece under the rail is your strip.
Pull your cut piece out, butt the remainder to the spacer and repeat.
Brilliantly simple.
SAE is the abbreviation for Society of Automotive Engineers.
Tom's method is brilliantly simple. The guiderail is 7.25" / 18.4 cm wide (measure yours to be sure).
Subtract the desired width of strip from the guiderail width. Make a spacer of the resulting width (e.g. for a 2" strip, make a 5.25" wide spacer).
Change the standard fence to tall mode and butt the spacer up to the fence.
Butt a straight edge of the material up to the spacer.
Butt the guide rail up to the fence.
Make your cut. The piece under the rail is your strip.
Pull your cut piece out, butt the remainder to the spacer and repeat.
Brilliantly simple.
Paul G said:
Themistocles
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I get it now and humbly thank you
Themistocles said:
Hi,
Welcome to the FOG! [smile]
Glad you found a useful method here. Lots more where that came from on the forum [thumbs up]
Seth
Themistocles
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Many thanks for the welcome
Been lurking for some time...
Hope to have something meaningful to contribute at some point, but I stand very much at the rookie level at this point
Been lurking for some time...
Hope to have something meaningful to contribute at some point, but I stand very much at the rookie level at this point
tjbnwi
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- May 12, 2008
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- 7,102
Themistocles said:
I did not mean to come off as snarky or rude with my first answer to you. I do somethings that I will not share out of respect for the people at Festool, -USA in particular. I know that whatever is shared they want it to be safe and within their use guidelines for the tool. I never put myself at risk, experience just allows me to do things others trying it for the first time may have problems with.
Funny about the SAE, I was a certified Master Automotive Technician most of my life. I past every test they offered in late 1973 when it was still the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (NAISE), now it is just ASE). Taught automotive repair in collage for 10 years.
Tom
Rickfisher
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As a Canadian living on the US border. I am lucky.. I grew up learning both metric and Imperial. We have 2x4's ... and 12.5mm plywood..
Its actually not that hard to use both. I usually switch back and forth, using Imperial for long lengths and metric for short lengths.. Its not uncommon to have a rail on a table that is 33-1/2" long and 17.5mm thick ..
It always seems odd to hear people argue about which system is better, or hear people complain because their system isn't recognized.
A typical Canadian tape measure has metric on one side and Imperial across from it ..
Its actually not that hard to use both. I usually switch back and forth, using Imperial for long lengths and metric for short lengths.. Its not uncommon to have a rail on a table that is 33-1/2" long and 17.5mm thick ..
It always seems odd to hear people argue about which system is better, or hear people complain because their system isn't recognized.
A typical Canadian tape measure has metric on one side and Imperial across from it ..
SittingElf
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- May 28, 2013
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Imperial is still used throughout the world in some fields... and is even MORE confusing!
I'm a professional pilot, and I fly large helicopters in Nigeria on a Six-Week on, Six-Week off schedule. In the aviation world, we have to use not two, but FOUR systems of measurement.
Altitudes are expressed in Feet. Speeds and distances are expressed in Nautical Miles. Runway visibilities are expressed in EITHER meters or feet, depending on where you are operating from (and that is not consistent). Fuel, again depending on the location, is expressed in Gallons, Liters, or imperial pounds. Engine instrument pressures may be indicated in PSI or Bars...depending on where manufactured. Barometric pressures are expressed in two ways as well, and some altimeter manufacturers have been making their instruments to indicate both. Confusing?? You better believe it!
Even NASA has had problems with this. A number of years ago, a Mars Mission ended in a crash because someone at NASA had used Imperial measurements instead of Metric. The lander was lost during descent as a result, at a loss of almost $1 Billion.
I'm an advocate of moving entirely to the metric system... even in the air. We were supposedly supposed to have completed this conversion by the mid-eighties, just as other countries have done in their past, but politics have once again intervened, and our education system has failed its children by continuing to press for the buggy whip, instead of the engine.
I'm a professional pilot, and I fly large helicopters in Nigeria on a Six-Week on, Six-Week off schedule. In the aviation world, we have to use not two, but FOUR systems of measurement.
Altitudes are expressed in Feet. Speeds and distances are expressed in Nautical Miles. Runway visibilities are expressed in EITHER meters or feet, depending on where you are operating from (and that is not consistent). Fuel, again depending on the location, is expressed in Gallons, Liters, or imperial pounds. Engine instrument pressures may be indicated in PSI or Bars...depending on where manufactured. Barometric pressures are expressed in two ways as well, and some altimeter manufacturers have been making their instruments to indicate both. Confusing?? You better believe it!
Even NASA has had problems with this. A number of years ago, a Mars Mission ended in a crash because someone at NASA had used Imperial measurements instead of Metric. The lander was lost during descent as a result, at a loss of almost $1 Billion.
I'm an advocate of moving entirely to the metric system... even in the air. We were supposedly supposed to have completed this conversion by the mid-eighties, just as other countries have done in their past, but politics have once again intervened, and our education system has failed its children by continuing to press for the buggy whip, instead of the engine.
