Next purchase, Long Guide Rail or MFT or Long Hole Rail

[jaredleeb]

I apologize if this is a repeat question, but I just had to get this on here before for sanity sake

What is the best purchase after buying the ts55?  The 106" Rail,  The MFT, or the 95" holey rail?

The 106 rail will give me enough length for a sheet of plywood, but if I decided to get the lr32 system I would have to buy another rail, very expensive

Which leads me to my next option the 95" lr32.  But why in the world would this just not be over 8' long?  The means I would be short on sheet goods and have to connect another rail, which defeats the purpose of buying the huge rails

And the MFT would give me a great work surface for crosscuts, and in the future I cant wait to build a mobile cabinet for one them, but for now the 32" rail it comes with would leave me short on sheet goods if I combined it with the 55"

I hope you can understand my situation here,  please and thank you for any advice given

Jared

 

[Administrator_JSVN]

Jared,

This is a subjective question and would be based on your needs if you have to choose only one item from your choices. Personally, I use my MFT a LOT. You wouldn't want to remove and reattach the rail from it to combine it with another guide rail anyway, in my opinion. It would be cumbersome to do so.

You could combine the 55" LR 32 rail with your current 55" rail to give you the length needed for sheet goods and the option in the future for LR 32 with a router.

I'm sure others will chime in. Providing more information about what you plan to do might give us a better idea of what to recommend.

Shane

 

[teocaf]

i've never understood this whole thing with asking others what tool to get next. especially when the question is so open ended and lacks additional info.  immediately what comes to my mind is:  what are you building next?  what other equipment do you have? what do you build most? etc etc etc
still, i kind of get the point behind your question.  so i would say an mft3 set -- extremely useful all around and like you said it comes with the short rail.  combine that with some tall dogs and a bit of ingenuity and you can do all sorts of things to handle longer sheet goods and other things until you get some of the other parts.

 

[Kev]

Rails multiply like systainers [embarassed]

1400 + 1400 holey is a good combo for starting out .. then add an MFT/3. The 3000 will find it's way home if you cut a lot of full sheets over time.

The 1400 holey will let you get into lr32, but the 2424 holey is handy for tall applications.

 

[VW mick]

I've not got a holey rail yet but a 1400 .would probably do for most base and top units .

But as your question was what to buy after a ts55 .id say a 3000 rail

 

[dltflt]

I think I would get the 3000 rail. The 1400 Holey will do a tall cabinet also with a little extra time. I would also guess there is going to be a solid shelf in the center of most tall cabinets.

 

[Dan Clermont]

Really it depends on your needs and what your requirements are at the time. A MFT is very handy for milling / dimensioning smaller pieces and a long rail is for rip cuts.

I would save up for the 3000mm rail over the 2700mm rail as it is nice to have the extra 6" on the ends when ripping full length sheets.

Holey rails are nice as well and perhaps you should consider a holey rail to attach to your current 1400mm rail and also the MFT.

I guarantee the 3000mm rail will follow you home someday!

Dan Clermont

 

[dpetrzelka]

I agree with others, we are missing a lot of info to give you really solid advice, but here goes:

First I would get the MFT/3 - mine gets a lot of use both in cutting, but also for sanding and assembly. You will quickly want to add a number of clamps and dogs, so keep that in mind.

Second would be a 1400 LR32 and rail connectors - combined with the 1400 you already have you can cut a wide range of materials. Any new rails I buy will be LR32 if available - Festool could do well to offer all rails with the LR32 holes.

I wouldn't get a 2700/3000 until you are sure you need one - I've yet to need one, and combine my shorter rails when I do need to make longer cuts.

YMMV