MFT, guide rail alignment and old eyes and fingers . . .

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One of my goals has been to abandon my Radial Arm saw from the 1970s which has given me good service, but has seen better days.  Part of my attachment to it is that it is very simple and easy to make standard cuts.  My hope is to be able to use my Festool MFT and Saw as easily without the problems that the RAS creates. 

I have used my MFT 1080 for some time, and have read other people?s descriptions of its vices and virtues after I assembled it, I decided to clear everything off and effectively reassemble it.  I was startled by how much more useful and accurate it was than before I started this exercise.  In light of how much I have gained from this, and other, websites ? I thought I would pass along some observations for people who use the MFT 1080.  I suspect some of these things will also apply to users of Festool?s newer iteration the MFT 800/1080, the MFT/3 .

Part of what prompted this exercise was collecting and organizing my Festool manuals, papers and notes.  I have several documents concerning the assembly of the MFT 1080 and I do not recall reading each of them before assembling it.  Those documents included Festool?s ?Multifunction Table Instruction Manual? and its ?MFT 800/1080 Instructions: Supplementary guidelines for setting up your multi-function table?  and a note by Jack A Loganbill entitled ?Festool Multifunction Table (MFT 1080) found at www.thewoodshop.20m.com/festool_mft_pf.htm I also found that while much of the material in each of these documents were the same, each of them had points or perspectives not found in the others which I found useful.  In addition to these documents, I have read articles, manuals and notes by Jerry Work, John Lucas and Steve Adams among others on the subject of the MFT and how to make it more useful.

My particular problem(s) are that neither my eyes nor my hands work as well as they used to and measurement errors are increasingly frustrating problems.  In addition, I suffer from being overly literal when reading instruction manuals.  When the Festool manuals say that ?. . . the measurement for the front registering stop is 8 1/4" from the side face of the profile frame . . .?  and the rear stop is approximately 7" from the side face of the table ? I get hopelessly confused and end up with the front and rear registering stops being ?not quite? lined up precisely. 

After determining that my registering stops were not properly aligned I loosened both of them and moved each of them to the end of channel to force myself to devise a way to accurately align them that would not involve using a measuring device for my eyes to misread. 

Steve Adam?s has written a note entitled ?Festool_MFT_-_Secrets_Unveiled? which may be downloaded from http://festoolownersgroup.com/CoppermineMain//displayimage.php?pos=-1302.  In his note he describes a general procedure to use the holes in the MFT as an alignment tool.  Since I have purchased a number of Qwas and other bench dogs, I simply inserted four of them in a row near where the cutting edge of the guide rail should end up.  All I had to do then was to to move the ?Pinned rail support unit? and the ?hinged rail support? units (with the guide rail firmly attached over so that the cutting edge of the guide rail was snugly against all of the bench dogs.  Once that was done I moved the register stops over so they were snugly set against the rail support units.  Having done this I knew that the guide rail was firmly fixed in line with the hole scheme of the MDF top. 

I then followed the instructions in the manuals for the assembly and alignment of the fence rail, angle unit and Fence rail clamp.  Having followed those instructions carefully, I am convinced (rightly or wrongly) that the Angle clamp and rail are as close to perpendicular to the guide rail as I can make them, but I am still not confident that they are perpendicular and will remain so with bumping, bouncing etc. 

If I need to make sure that pieces will be perpendicular to the guide rail I will use a combination of bench dogs in holes which I am confident are perpendicular or parallel to the guide rail.  Having set the guide rail up in this manner, the only error(s) in perpendicular will come from whatever errors exist in the alignment of the holes in the MFT and whatever errors exist in the bench dogs.  The margins of error on both of those is far less than caused by my eyesight and hands. 

Similarly, in Getting the Most out of the Festool Multifunction Table Jerry Work describes several methods for getting a jig which is free from eye and hand errors and will consistently get a right angle (or other angle). 

For those of us who are a) new to woodworking, b) have aging hands and eyes and/or c) are simply inept, reassembling the MFT with a goal of reducing errors is a worthwhile exercise. 

 

[Dave Ronyak]

Thanks for describing in detail your method of squaring the Guide Rail to the fence on your MFT 1080.  I never worry about the placement of those little stops for the Guide Rail supports in the side rails.  I usually place a 2ft x 4 ft sheet of 1/4 plywood on the top of my MFT 1080 to protect it during sawing operations.  I sometimes remove them so I can join tables together or insert clamps in the side channels of the side rails for my MFTs.  I find it simple, quick and accurate to use a large (18 inch hypotenuse) metal carpenter's right triangle  (the gold colored item in the photo below)

I is easy to both feel and hear the metallic click sound if the guide rail and fence are not square if the included angle is greater than ninety degrees.  I slide the reference right triangle along the fence until it contacts the Guide Rail or along the Guide Rail until it contacts the fence to confirm there is a right angle between them.

I have 3 old style MFTs and the holes in each of their tops are different sizes.  Those of the last purchased MFT 800 are significantly larger than the holes in the other MFT 800 and my MFT 1080.  I only need one reference right triangle and not 3 or more sets of precision dogs, which appear to cost about the same as the reference right triangle.  I realize those dogs can be used for other purposes as well as setting up.

But, if I had to set up somewhere without that reference right triangle, I'd use some variation of your method using wooden dowels or two pairs of the end stops (dogs) that are supplied with Festool's Clamping Elements (Item 488030).

Dave R.