MFTC portable workshop

[six-point socket II]

Is any FOG Member, who has PAID for the plans still without?

I purchased these a long time ago, I knew I had them - and more recently actually did find them on a HDD coming from a former shop computer.

What I have is the !German! version “Combo Pack”. It’s a roughly 10MB zip-file that I’m willing to e-mail if you send me a private message stating you paid for them and provide an e-mail that will accept a file that size. (Which should be really no problem these days.)

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[Hawkeye0001]

I'd chip in with the English version under the same conditions (proof of purchase, screenshot or pic)

Funny enough the english Combo pack* is 21 MB


*Contents:

• MFTC (the famous mobile workbench)
  MFTB (a wooden T-Loc Systainer)
  MFSC (Multi Function System Cart)
  System Workshop

 

[squall_line]

I'll just quote myself from March 21, 2023:

I have to believe that Festool USA, the owner of this site, would actively discourage anything that even remotely appeared to be tangentially related to a potential copyright violation or the resale or transfer of copyrighted digital goods.

 

[Hawkeye0001]

I have to believe that Festool USA, the owner of this site, would actively discourage anything that even remotely appeared to be tangentially related to a potential copyright violation or the resale or transfer of copyrighted digital goods.

The suggestion was exclusively on a private level and only to people who have demonstrably purchased the plans directly from Timothy in the past but are not in possession of them yet or anymore.
Should the mods decide that is not officially allowed on here so be it.

 

[jeh]

As the brother to an architect who has had to explain to builders that they can't get one set of plans and then build 5 houses with them (unless they bought a 5 home license in effect) and a wife who is an author who regularly has her works pirated, I might be overly sensitive to a situation like this, but it just shouldn't be shared or sold.

The home plans one is a frequent occurrence that even applies if you buy a book of house plans and decide you want the architectural drawings for one of the houses. They are single use only unless you pay for the right to use again.

 

[timwors]

I made my own version of the MFTC last year, given the apparent non-availability of the Tim plans.

It is definitely possible to figure it out without the plans, and although my version is not perfect (and not as good as the original) it is fairly close.

I built mine out of a single sheet of 18mm birch ply (except the shelf which is 6mm). I already had a CNC'd MFT top which I cut down slightly to fit.

If anyone's going to try this, I would offer the following "lessons learnt":
- watch out for the leg depth, if they are too deep the table won't fold up
- for me the shelf height was critical - it needed to be higher than the CTL-MIDI under it, but if it's too high then the support rail will hit its corresponding rail on the base cabinet when folded up
- the wheels need to be bigger than mine - I used an axle below the cabinet to make it easier to build, but this means the wheels are too small
- the thing is HEAVY with 18mm ply, too heavy really, although mine only moves about 1m as it stays in my garage
- the shelf is critical to the table's stability, mine is fixed in place with Dominos glued on one side only, which works really well
- the drilling/installation of the hinge bolts needs to be done very carefully/precisely so that the table remains square to the base and legs - I don't have a drill press so this was a bit tricky (although it worked out OK)
- it's not cheap... including the hardware mine cost about £650 but nearly half that was the birch ply, so it could have been cheaper
- using the Sys-AZ drawers made things simpler

Originally I was just going to get the MW 1000. This is about £900 currently as a set. I realised this wasn't going to work for me because when set up it's too long to fit in my garage, plus the extension table is only 4 holes wide (vs 6 in the MFTC, which makes a massive difference). Also the holes are not CNC'd to guarantee a right angle.

Also worth adding that this was really fun to figure out and build. As a beginner I went to a lot of trouble to practise various techniques on this and really enjoyed the process. It probably took about 4 days to build but a lot of this was faffing about with sanding and Osmo.

View attachment 1

View attachment 2

 

[CascadeMaker]

Good afternoon to the forum!

Timothy's MFTC designs and his video looked to me like a perfect garage workspace. Tool storage that could be easily moved, and a workbench that could be stored and quickly deployed. For my small garage, definitely a good setup.

There is no Festool or Systainer stuff in my tool inventory. So I began playing with SketchUp and designing something that is based on the MFTC design but had a few different requirements in the layout.

• It had to end up being the height of my table saw, to act as an outfeed table. I re-created the design from scratch in SketchUp to sync with a specific height.
• No systainer toolboxes, so I made simple wood drawers. The lowest drawer had to be large enough to hold the track saw.
• I wanted to keep it inexpensive, so I made wood drawer slides and just made the drawer bases a little wider. Locking drawer slides are pricey. Barrel Bolts are way cheap. The drawer slide grooves at regular heights could allow me to change drawer layouts if I need more/smaller drawers.
• Don't have a domino joiner, so dowel joints and 3/4" dog holes everywhere as substitute.

I like it so far, but have some thoughts. 10-inch wheels from Harbor Freight roll well, and the shelf support between the lowest drawer and the big drawer provides a solid home for the bolt axle. No wheel flex there. I placed the axle high and inward to give enough room for a useful bottom drawer, and minimize the size of the hardwood step sliders protecting the case sides above the wheels. The axle placement means that the bottom edge of the case drags close the the ground when tilted at the main transport angle. (I will probably remove the wheels and chamfer that corner with an angled track saw cut.)

So it was a nice first effort, and I'm happy to be storing tools that would be taking up space on garage shelves and in toolboxes that need unstacking and stacking to get at the track saw.

Timothy's design is constructed for housing systainer toolboxes, and I like the idea of having tools in toolboxes, adding the needed toolboxes to the MFTC cart, and having them slide out on a drawer for access. There is a toolbox brand with red and black colors based out of Brookfield, Wisconsin - they are known for modular, stackable secure tool storage. I've been designing version two of the CascadeMaker MFTC project with SketchUp to fit the XL, Large, and Small toolboxes, and will probably start making sawdust shortly. I sprung for some of those fancy locking drawer slides, and now I'll have the benefit of stackable toolboxes without having to  unstack them to get at the bottom lid. If it turns out to be a successful evolution of my first build, I'll think about posting photographs of v0.2.[attachimg=1][attachimg=2][attachimg=3][attachimg=4]

 

[rst]

Great work

 

[JasperBrouwer]

built a stand for my kapex.

 

[boblenz]

That looks great.  I would buy plans if you offered them even though I do not own a Kapex.  I really like the set-up.

 

[WillAdams]

Every time I start to look at making something along these lines, a couple of things come up:

- the Tanos (Festool) MW 1000 Mobile Workshop is $575
- 2 non-marring wheels are $10 ea. at Harbor Freight:https://www.harborfreight.com/mater...ers/8-inch-non-marring-rubber-tire-47638.html (and you still need an axel)
- a sheet of Baltic Birch or some reasonable equivalent is ~$150--$200
- misc. hardware (the afore-mentioned axel) adds up quickly
- presumably you'd want a Systainer T-LOC  SYS-MFT at the top and that's almost $100 itself

The one design which seemed to have legs so to speak was to purchase a dolly or hand truck, probably a convertible one:
https://www.harborfreight.com/2-in-1-convertible-hand-truck-800-lb-600-lb-capacity-58295.html

and to then re-work it so that it would accept and lock in Systainers and (probably) have drawers, but that's more metal-work than I really want to get involved in.

Maybe starting with the foldable version:
https://www.harborfreight.com/150-lb-capacity-foldable-hand-truck-58298.html

but then one worries about weight limits.

There's a "COSCO 3-In-1 Convertible Hand Truck" which looks to be aluminum, so maybe a little easier to work with, but it's $170 and looks to have a much more complicated structure:
https://www.harborfreight.com/3-in-1-convertible-hand-truck-56409.html

A Systainer-Port  SYS-PORT 500/2 addresses a lot of the issues, but is pricey, and the top isn't a work surface and isn't set up to accept a Systainer so that one could put a Syss-MFT on it.

 

[JasperBrouwer]

That looks great.  I would buy plans if you offered them even though I do not own a Kapex.  I really like the set-up.

send me a PM and I will send you the skech up file.

 

[Dog Island Offcuts]

I did a variation of Timothy's MFTC with an alternate toolbox system. It was a fun project. I started a new thread on it, here.

View attachment 1

 

[boblenz]

Very Impressive.  Thanks for taking the time to build, document and make plans available.
Now we just need a YT video to see how you put it together.

 

[Dog Island Offcuts]

My camera skillset for capturing the project assembly is nowhere near the craftsmanship of James Hamilton, Ron Paulk, or even Timothy. And most of my time on this design was spent hunched over a mouse, using SketchUp, rotating components to ensure a perfect fit. Thanks for the complement about the process - I'll defer to the plans for the details of putting it together. 79 pages of step-by-step cutting and assembly, and I think I found most of the gotchas. (Chamfer the workbox edges BEFORE mounting the workbench, etc)

 

[mac2525]

Hi there,
I purchased the plans from Timothy back in 2018 and have proff of that purchase.
Sadly I no longer have access to the files he sent me, but now wish to make the MFSC.
I there anyone here still willing to send me the plans?

Thank
Aidan