mft dilemma all my own doing

jnug said:
Maybe getting at least one actual mft makes sense for me after all. The height of an mft is such that if I have one of those, I can configure my home made version to be the same height. It would not have the neat, purpose built connectors for joining two mft tables. But I could mate them by still getting at least one of the profiles as I had intended anyway and the table connectors which join at the profiles anyway. I could have anything from a 57" wide to 81" wide by 43" long work area depending on how I configure it.

In fact the mini table profile would be a perfect size for what I have in mind. So I would save a little money there getting a shorter profile.

Just to be clear, the Mini has a different working height.  It is at 790mm, not the 900mm like the MFT/3 basic or kit.  It is shorter as it is supposed to be a platform for a Kapex and those two in combination gives you a height of 900 on the Kapex work surface.

If that is fine by you, then go for it.  I am over 6 feet tall and really like my work being at 900mm, if you are shorter (or don't care) then it might work for your needs.

cheers.  Bryan.
 
I see what you responded to...."the profile of the mini". That was a poor choice of words on my part. What I was saying is that the Profiles (extruded T-track of the Mini) which are naturally shorter in length than the Profiles from the Basic might be all I needed plus the connecting rods to mate up a real mft/3 to my home made bench. I can get the heights to come in exactly the same and suddenly I end up with three different widths of complete table plus I can still get long supports for my home made system and throw a full section of ply over it.

I should ask about sacrificial pieces for cuts. I have seen foam insulation sheets mentioned in that regard. Does that work out OK?
 
Gotcha on the mini conversation.

I don't use a foam board or anything in my setup. I did at the beginning but clamping things gets really problematic. I have made a lot of cuts in mine, usually just a few mm deep into the MDF and it is still going strong. If it ever becomes an issue I can flip my top. You might not have that luxury but for me it is fine.

You will get people on both sides weighing in. If you want a sacrificial top, I would almost drill the same hole pattern into a piece of hardboard (less than ¼" thick) and have the sac top and still be able to clamp.

Cheers. Bryan.
 
Actually that is a good one Bryan. Hardboard is probably just thick enough. Might have trouble finding one the size of an mft/3 but I suppose even one that is much smaller that you could move around the top would be a useful bit to have.
 
Not to hijack the thread but buying a profile from an MFT looks like a good way to mount a VL to a wall or other surface.
 
Wow my head was spinning dizzy by reading this madness.  Here's what you do.  Sit down drink a big tall glass of the green festool koolaid.  Take a deep deep breath Then grab your computer or tablet  and order yourself a full blown beautiful MFT/3 cause your diy project sounds expensive and time consuming and potentially futile.  You will be so happy with the real deal give in to the peer pressure and get something freaking awesome
 
I already did that. Placed the order last night. but only because as you probably read a few posts ago,I can expand it by sitting my home made bench right next to it, dropping an mft/3 mini profile on to an edge of it and mate it to the mft/3 itself using the table connectors. The simple fact is that mft'3's on their own are

a) just not big enough, especially if your track saw is the 75
b) not sturdy enough for hand tool work even with the leg supports. They just aren't

Yet I don't want to keep everything up and assembled all the time. I want to use what I want to use when I want to use it and get it the heck out of my way when I don't.

The MFT/3 on its own will be devoted to power tool work of a manageable size only. If I have to reef something down into a bench dog hole and perform hand tool work it is going on one ply section of my home made bench. It will take that sort of abuse and just grin back at me. The MFT won't. The MFT won't even do the job never mind whether it will grin or not.

The reason I initially was committed to just the home made bench is that it by virtue of its robustness and size. it would give me more functionality. The mft/3 gives the user the means to conduct a varied degree of power related tasks within a given size range quickly and thats where it ends. One can make the mft/3 the basis of a larger work surface and expand the use of the mft/3 tools but only by growing the work surface itself.

Now if an MFT was better at hand tool work, somebody like me might grow that work surface by just adding MFT's. But that would not get me what I need to do hand tool work.

So my MFT will be the center of my power work. Alone it will be given middling size tasks that I want to complete quickly. One ply section (24" x 48") of my home made bench equipped with 20mm holes with 96mm spacing will get all the hand tool work. Anything that has to be reefed down to a work surface hard for hand tool work will go there. That ply section along with one more 24" x 48" section with either a slab for surface or again in ply with be the final piece of the puzzle. My total power tool work area can go from the basic MFT/3 itself to a surface 57" wide or finally a surface 81" wide or if I want to, I can just pull the two sections of my home made bench right off the legs, throw a full sheet of ply over the frame and work from that if I choose, leaving the mft in my wake at the same time.

Go take a look at the track that comes with a TS75 just as one example of the mft/3's limitations.

The fact of my hand tool work and the kind of work surface I need for it allows me to think of a track saw in terms of a larger work surface area because I needed something that could handle hand tool work. Why not make it big enough to handle a TS75 as well and forgo owning both a TS75 and the smaller TS55? Now others might be throwing sheet goods work at a track saw constantly and for them, maybe owning both or owning just a TS55 makes sense. Doesn't make sense for me. Honestly if I wanted a smaller track saw as well, it wouldn't be a TS55. The 75 is the game changer of the two. To me it is maybe the best saw Festool makes as it is truly a game changer as long as you can handle the size. Other Festool saws are for me great tools but not game changers.

Th MFT/3 is a nice bit of kit. Bit like most things Festool we tend to anoint them as God's gift to woodworking, universally and unilaterally appropriate for any woodworking task and very often if not always that is simply not the case.
 
FYI...  Two MFTs put together on their long ends are about 2300mm...  Plenty for that 1900 rail that comes with the 75. ;^)

Glad you worked it out and welcome (soon) to the MFT club. As my wife says, it is an acronym for MisFiT.

Cheers. Bryan.
 
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