MFT Secrets Unveiled

Qwas

Qwas

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My manual, "Festool MFT: Secrets Unveiled" is available to download here. When you get there you will have to right click the PDF picture to start the download.

The manual discusses using the table's holes to align the guide rail and bench dogs to hold the boards for cutting. This method is fast, easy, and accurate.

It also discusses the making of a parallelogram fence for making parallel cuts.

I thought I would open a new topic far any comments, reviews, criticism on the manual.
 
Looks good, I'm not having any success saving/downloading.  Any additional tips/suggestions that might help?  Thanks for your efforts in putting this together.
 
The link seems to have some problems. If you have problems try clicking "Gallery" in the menu below the FOG banner. Go to the Qwas gallery and it is the PDF file. You will need to right click to download.
 
That is deserving of monetary remuneration.

It would be great if you had a PayPal button for such things.
 
Well, I do have a PayPal Account under qwas99@bellsouth.net.

Donations are gladly accepted!
 
Qwas, I downloaded but the pics do not show no matter what I do. I am using IE 7.0. Fred
 
Fantastic information!

Fred - did you download an independent pdf file to your hard disk, or are you viewing the manual via IE? I downloaded the pdf and viewed it with Acrobat Reader (Mac; but that shouldn't make any difference). It worked fine.

iggy
 
Fred West said:
Qwas, I downloaded but the pics do not show no matter what I do. I am using IE 7.0. Fred
Click to expand...

Fred, start using Firefox would you. And quit picking on me, I have a tear in my eye. ;)

Nickao

Firefox browser
 
Nick, thank you and I will try it again.  ;D Got all the stuff from you today and thank you VERY MUCH. The surprise was wonderful.  8) :D ;) Alright I will stop picking on you but it is so much fun.  :) ;)

Iggy, I didn't even get a chance to download the pdf except as a "Save Target As" and when I opened it there was just junk.  :( Fred
 
I put my money where my appreciation is.  Dinero on the way via PayPal. 

It's not much, but it's better than a misaligned domino pin.

I would encourage others to do the same.  Only 119 more folks and Qwas can reward us with a Kapex manual!
 
  Nicely written. And you said you were not good at that !!

  A few points

  - Looks like 8020 is not available in Europe, I suggest you mention Bosch Rexroth extrusions
    which I recently discovered. Rails, V nuts, joining squares, even sliding bases, ... Here is an
    URL to explore around:http://www.boschrexroth.com/business_units/brl/en/produkte/mge/index.jsp

- It tooks me time to understand why the 60 and 30 degree angles could not be achieved.
  I guess a simple diagram could be added just to show which are the triangle edges
  that are to be compared using edges that are tangent with the 20mm holes and say
  they are not exacly in a 1 x 2 ratio, because of the tangency effects (is that clear ?)
  (is that clear ?). That might avoid people trying to do it again. 
 
rjfarel said:
I put my money where my appreciation is.  Dinero on the way via PayPal. 

It's not much, but it's better than a misaligned domino pin.

I would encourage others to do the same.  Only 119 more folks and Qwas can reward us with a Kapex manual!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the donation, much appreciated.
 
mhch said:
  Nicely written. And you said you were not good at that !!

  A few points

  - Looks like 8020 is not available in Europe, I suggest you mention Bosch Rexroth extrusions
    which I recently discovered. Rails, V nuts, joining squares, even sliding bases, ... Here is an
    URL to explore around:http://www.boschrexroth.com/business_units/brl/en/produkte/mge/index.jsp

- It tooks me time to understand why the 60 and 30 degree angles could not be achieved.
   I guess a simple diagram could be added just to show which are the triangle edges
  that are to be compared using edges that are tangent with the 20mm holes and say
  they are not exacly in a 1 x 2 ratio, because of the tangency effects (is that clear ?)
  (is that clear ?). That might avoid people trying to do it again. 
Click to expand...

Thanks mhch. I will add those to the revised manual. I've been looking at the Bosch extrusions and they look to be similar to 8020 and should work fine. I just wish they had some thinner extrusions. I looked up 8020 distributors and it is available in USA, Canada, Australia, , New Zealand, and UK.

I avoided the 30/60 angle issue because I didn't want to get too technical and lose anyone. I figured someone wouldn't believe me, try it, and see it doesn't work. But maybe a brief explanation should be added.

And much thanks to all your help working on this method. For those that don't know, mhch started working with me early on, helped prove it's workable, got me going on the parallelogram, helped me get my ideas down on paper, and encouraged me to write the manual. He came up with the 20 mm PVC bench dogs which still seems to be the best dogs (my custom made aluminum dogs should be here Saturday but I'm already afraid they won't be right). My hat is off to you!
 
Qwas said:
I just wish they had some thinner extrusions.
...

I avoided the 30/60 angle issue because I didn't want to get too technical and lose anyone. I figured someone wouldn't believe me, try it, and see it doesn't work. But maybe a brief explanation should be added.

20 mm PVC bench dogs which still seems to be the best dogs (my custom made aluminum dogs should be here Saturday but I'm already afraid they won't be right).
Click to expand...

Rexroth offers many kinds of extrusion. What do you mean by "thinner".  I think a 10x40 or so is available, although I'm not sure.

I'm still puzzled by this 30/60 angle issue. I'll write down a quick note to close the topic for myself. If anything short and
useful comes out I'll send it to you.

What about 20mm turned wood rod !!    One can even buy 20mm beech rod in France to be used for hanging light curtains.
PVC rods are however easier to find here.

One extra thought: I started the woodworking hobby by last summer. Jerry Work's and John Lucas documents and websites
have been invaluable for my learning.  Your manual would be wonderful for beginners like I was with a small section to discuss
the cut accuracy (moving a torn splinter guard - see a very recent post of yesterday, measuring from the blade teeth, using
stops and story sticks). This would have saved me a number of false experiments !!
 
I only downloaded a portion of their catalog, dealing with extrusions. The smallest I see is 20 x 20 mm.  Their thinner stock might be in another section. What I seen was very similar to 8020 except Rexroth likes to use wider slots. In the back of my mind I was wondering if some of their stock could fit on the Festool Fence head and replace the Festool rail. But the more I think about it, most of the Festool fence errors are from the head.

The 30/60 angle issue. You can go to a trigonometry calculator and see it best. Here is one. To get a 30/60 triangle, it is not the 2 legs on the 90 degree angle that have a length of 1 and 2, it is the longest leg (the hypotenuse) and the shortest leg.

I thought about a turned wooden rod, called dowels here. I don't have access to a lathe and none of the stores carry anything close. I have some friends who work in a metal shop and they are making me some dogs out of aluminum that I can use on the bottom of a fence. Should be here Saturday. He was talking about making some changes on the phone yesterday and I'm afraid he has messed it up.

That was the reason for getting the manual out - for beginners. I remember the struggles I had trying to get things square and it seemed like 30 seconds later it would be off again. I can see where it would be handy for the pros making a jig also. Make the jig to fit some holes and it is aligned and ready in an instant the next time you need it.
 
Here is an URL to an overview of the Bosch profiles.
It is in French, but there is few of it so you can get the info from there.
http://www.technic-achat.com/boutiq...&num_actus=8&gclid=CKjqzKnt8ZECFRRYZwodhivkqw

3 kinds of profiles, based on the opening of the V-tracks (6mm, 8mm, 10mm)
the 10x40 is in the 6mm tracks.  V-nuts, squares, sliding  and other things
are each located in different sections of the rexroth catalog (which I find pretty confusing)

 
Me and mhch were discussing how to do different angles. Here is a jig I made up in just a couple of minutes.

[attachthumb=1]

Here is a close up of the holes.
[attachthumb=2]

I grabbed a scrap piece of plywood/particle board and drilled a hole at one end to attach my home made bench dog. The dog is 1 inch long, 20 mm diameter, and drilled and tapped in the center for a 1/4-20 bolt.
[attachthumb=3]

I then set the board at 30 degrees and drilled a hole to match up with a table hole in the same diagonal group as the first hole. Repeat for 35 and 40 degrees. My board acting as the fence goes under the guide rail but can easily be cut shorter if you don't want that.

This is just a very basic idea but I think you guys get the general idea of what needs to be done for various angles. You can drill 20 mm holes and use 2 1/2 degree spacing instead of my 5 degrees and still have enough strength between the holes.
 
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