Chuck Wilson said:
Geez, some of you guys are merciless. Give the guy a break.
Agreed! I'm all for teasing old-timers but folks who are brand new to the forum - and woodworking - should, IMO, get nothing but encouragement (unless they're being completely obnoxious).
I'm pretty new to Festool and doing any sort of "serious" woodworking (i.e. trying to make things that really look nice and professional rather than just slapping some stuff together to make shelves for the basement). One thing I know though - both from reading online and talking to carpenter friends is that it pays to invest in some good measuring equipment; because you'll be using that to double check all of your other tools. Before my TS-75 even arrived I ordered a decent - not even super fancy but decent - engineers square:
http://www.amazon.com/Diefenbacher-Graduated-Engineers-Square-9/dp/B000VRIFY0/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1273933244&sr=1-15
and precsion 24" metal ruler (can't find the link for the one I bought - incra makes some nice ones and woodcraft sells some nice ones, but mine was cheaper).
I quickly realized that I'd also need a very precise LARGE square and the steel framing square I had wasn't going to cut it - you need one that's thick and has a heel that can align it with one of the edges. I saw on here that a of guys swear by the 18" Woodpeckers Carpenter's Triangle, and I have yet to find anything that matches it in terms of size, thickness and build quality...
http://www.woodpeck.com/speedsquare.html
I got one, and use it ALL THE TIME. I'm still at the point where I don't totally trust my set up MFT fence + guide-rail system, so I still double check my corners for square after every 3 or 4 cuts, and that woodpecker triangle is the business - both for doing the setup of the rail + fence and for checking the pieces (I will say, that my DIY MFT + fence works great and stays where I set it, I'm just paranoid and like to double check a lot). That triangle is also handy when using the guide rail "freehand" as I will use it both for drawing my cut line and to double check it before clamping by butting the square up against the back of the guide rail. The thickness of the triangle really comes in handy when doing this kind of thing and when using it to check your table setup, since the little curved edges on the side of the guide rail don't make good contact with a very thin square/triangle.
The downsides to that triangle are:
- the cost
- the fact that you're paying for a milled MDF holder for it (that I never use), when a box would be fine
- (most importantly to me) WoodPeckers are SLOW with processing orders - it took me like 2 weeks to get it, which may be fine for some, but as internet-age kind of guy, I expect it in 5 days or less. I hate ordering from WoodPeckers for that reason.
...so if anyone here can point out something comparable, please do - I haven't found anything!
I spent my first 20 hours or so just playing with my stuff, building little jigs, putting t-track into table tops for clamping / guide rails, making a fence for my miter saw, setting things up, making cuts, checking for square, checking for parallel, calibrating fence rulers. Learning *how to* test for square (e.g. the "5-cut method" for testing fence squareness)... breaking down, setting up again, making cuts, checking for square again, etc... It's not very productive in any real sense, so once I was getting a feel for it, I started building stuff just for my shop for storage and things - if they were a little off, I didn't care that much and learned more lessons from it. Now I'm getting comfortable and moving on to building "real" things - simple plywood-box type cabinets for starters. It takes time, but it's worth it - the best thing I've learned, which has been a hard lesson, is that woodworking requires patience and mindfulness - two things I really need more of!
Cheers and good luck!
Chris
