Move holes on MFT top?

[Mismarked]

I’m sure this has been covered previously but couldn’t find any threads.  Can anyone suggest a quick and easy way to move some of the holes on the MFT top?  Don’t want to enlarge or change their shape.  Just move ‘em about a millimeter or so (at most).

Here is the issue.  I just got a replacement MFT top.  Never had any Festool stuff till a few months ago.  At some point that first weekend, I overlooked the depth stop on the TS55 and cut a 7/8” kerf, which was a little aggressive for the ¾” top.  Went almost all the way across, so ended up with a “zero clearance” slot in the edge of the aluminum MFT frame and an MFT top that resembled a ballot with a hanging chad but still pretty solid.  Beautiful glue ready cut, though.  Very impressed with the blade.  After a couple of months, it started to sag in the middle so I ordered the new one.  Just picked it up last weekend.  Put both pieces of the old one on top of the new one to see how thick of a strip of wood I would need to domino between the two pieces to get it back to normal and use as an extension table top.  I lined up the holes in one corner and inserted a Qwas dog, but then noticed that the holes at the far corner were slightly off.  Looking down through the holes, I saw a small crescent of the new MFT top underneath instead of just a hole.  I have a couple of photos below, one with the dog in one corner, and the other showing one of the holes on the other corner that doesn't line up.

I immediately suspected expansion from humidity because I keep the MFT3 in an open garage near the Texas coast, and some mornings we have fog so thick that it is a little foggy inside the garage.  But the edges of the new top and both pieces of the old top seem to line up perfectly, and the dogs also fit nicely in all of the holes, so there doesn’t seem to be any swelling of the MDF.  I also suspect that Festool machines the holes with a CNC to the 96mm distance, so I am sure that can’t be it.

The only explanation I could think of was that some of the holes moved.  I keep thinking back to my first-ever attempt at hand planing, which happened to be on top of the MFT, and I know that activity isn’t recommended on this site.  (Also, I never noticed the leg tightening knobs on the MFT until last weekend, when I removed the original MFT top and saw the knobs hiding underneath.  I thought Festool’s moving parts were always green).

Anyway, I used 2 Qwas dogs at the front of the board to hold it in place, used one hand to hold the MFT to try and keep it from wobbling, and the other hand on the tote.  After a while of vigorous effort, I got into a rhythmic motion of pulling the table toward me and ramming the plane into the board.  Miserable failure.  Going to watch some videos and try again at some point.

My best guess is that maybe I got careless with some WD-40 overspray on the MFT top at some point, and when I started hand planing and putting all of that sideways pressure on the Qwas dogs, something suddenly gave, and a lot of the holes slid over just a little. 

This gets back to the main question.  I finally got the hang of squaring everything with the Qwas dogs, but if the holes are catawampus I can’t really do that with the old MFT top.  Don’t want to pitch it in the scrap pile.  I have two days left to decide about the new Woodpecker’s MFT square, but even that won’t fix the issue.

Really need to find a way to move the holes back to where they were.  As we sit here today, all of the holes are rock solid and won’t budge—even a millimeter.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.  I certainly won’t be hand planing on the new MFT top.  Learned my lesson.

 

[Carl Prentiss]

I would be very surprised if your holes moved although that may be a question for Stephen Hawking. I suspect it's more likely that the kerf affected your alignment. (or one or the other was mis-machined)

 

[wow]

I would be very surprised if your holes moved although that may be a question for Stephen Hawking.

I was trying to think of a clever response to the holes 'moving' but couldn't come up with one. Yours is first class - thanks for the smile!

[thumbs up] [not worthy]

 

[Grasshopper]

That made me chuckle too!

I would be very surprised if your holes moved although that may be a question for Stephen Hawking.

I was trying to think of a clever response to the holes 'moving' but couldn't come up with one. Yours is first class - thanks for the smile!

[thumbs up] [not worthy]

 

[Carl Prentiss]

I didn't mean to make light of your issue, it's the cabin fever. Three weeks hovering around ZERO degrees and I've shut off the heat in my shop in an attempt at frugality. If you can butt your MFT against a wall or other immoveable object, I would think you could do LIGHT planning on it. It sounds like some honing is in order first though.
-Charlie

 

[Birdhunter]

This story would make a world class YouTube video.

 

[downtheroad]

Sounds like you cut through enough of the top to weaken it and the section to the right has shifted just enough to cause the misalignment. If so, couldn't you line up the left section using the dogs on top of the new top and clamp it. Then use the dogs in the misaligned section to bring make that correct. Then a batten could be glued across the 2 sections to strengthen it. Of course, the batten would be on the underside of the top.

 

[Mismarked]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I have closely re-considered based on y'all's comments regarding the kerf and think I figured out the issue (without resort to quantum physics  [big grin]), which may cure itself over time.  Hopefully you will no longer think I am crazy or hitting the booze too much.
The MFT has a rigid frame, and the top is held in place with the four screws at the corners.  Tight fit, and not much room for humidity-based expansion of the top when screwed in place.  When I cut a kerf that was deeper than the MFT top (you know what I mean), both "halves"  now had room to expand toward the cut, unfettered by any screws or aluminum frame.  Because of the uniform texture of the MDF, you would expect it to expand uniformly once it equalized with the high-humidity environment, and with any expansion, all of the holes might now be very slightly more than 96mm apart, but their alignment would still be straight or perpendicular.  But because I realized my mistake and stopped sawing before I cut the MFT top completely in half, it left me with a situation where the portion of the top near where I stand had plenty of room to expand toward the "kerf/cut," but the far end was still a solid piece of MDF with no room to expand.  So, the holes closest to me were now farther apart, with the greatest shift nearest the kerf, while the holes farthest from me were still in their original position.  Still great for lining up the MFT fence with Qwas dogs, but not so great for lining up the TS-55 track using the holes next to the kerf, which were no longer right at a 90 degree angle.  Instead, crooked as a snake in a cactus patch, as they say down here.
Now that I have removed the old MFT top and freed it from its shackles, I am hoping it completes its uniform expansion over the next few weeks and the holes will once again line up both vertically and horizontally, and then I can square the ends, insert a strip of wood, and domino everything together, to make a new, usable MFT top.  If anyone else living in a high-humidity environment has made the same mistake I made by cutting the kerf completely through the top but not all the way from one end to the other, my suggestion would be to repair it immediately (i.e. before it starts expanding) with bondo or wood filler as others have suggested, or go all in and complete the cut so that it will have room to expand all the way across.
Hope this helps someone, somewhere.