My mf slab

[tjbnwi]

CNC pattern cut we do for the MFT’s.



Workbench’s are all torsion boxes with 96mm grid.



Even the rolling tables are CNC’d.



Tom

 

[luvmytoolz]

That pattern with the crosses is brilliant, I might shamelessly copy that if I ever get around to building a new bench!

Although the slots look small enough, I might put them at a 45 degree angle so I can clamp parallel to the holes.

Using the ratchet clamps on my MFT has always been a major pain to me, need to open them right up and insert at just the right blessed angle!

 

[tjbnwi]

I’ve figured out how to work the Quick Clamps with one hand, baffles my employees on how I can do it. They all struggle using two hands.

Tom

 

[luvmytoolz]

I bow to your greatness Tom, I always end up dropping everything while looking like an idiot trying to get them in!

To be fair I think the Banggood ratchet clamps I use are a little longer, so in a moment of frustration I ended up drilling a bunch of big holes inbetween!

 

[Mike Goetzke]

That's great...wish I knew someone in the Chicago area who could do this for me.

Where in Chicago are you? I'm in Orland Park and a local sign making business had a large CNC machine and cut me out three 32"x48" MDF - MFT style tables. I used a simple 2-D CAD program to produce the files but they did some mods. I actually had a new Parf system but it was not that expensive to have them CNC'd. Only issue I have is I created too many slots for parallel clamps and everything seems to find it's place on the floor.

 

[Allano]

Using the ratchet clamps on my MFT has always been a major pain to me, need to open them right up and insert at just the right blessed angle!

I feel your pain. I have made a 25 mm thick MFT style top and use a China copy of the Festool ratchet clamps. (But I assume I would have the same problem with original Festools).

It is possible to slide them through the holes if I open them fully up, align them with the hole pattern, so the ratchet end can dive a few mm into a neighbour hole and then find the sweet spot ratchet position where the ratchet mechanism can dive a few mm further into the hole.

I really need to put a larger chamfer on the bottom edge of my holes!

I also think the cross slots solves another problem with clamps: The reach of a clamp is often just a little too short to reach the spot where I would like to clamp down on something. Being able to move the clamp around inside that cross would make it much easier to find the optimal clamp position.

 

[Allano]

I’ve figured out how to work the Quick Clamps with one hand, baffles my employees on how I can do it. They all struggle using two hands.

Tom

I saw that Matchfit have made a ratchet clamp for their dovetail system. It has a small spring to hold the sliding part in place while the clamp is not under load. Seems like that would be even more useful for a MFT style ratchet clamp. I am tired of having the fixed part slide all the way down when I open the clamps.

I guess that would also help with one-handed usage of the clamp for those of us who are less skilled.