Re: Festool Carvex PSC420 Review - Video

[ART at WORK]

Using any jigsaw on a rail or next to a solid guide clamped to the wood is prone to all sorts of problems. When you guide a piece of wood through a bandsaw you are constantly doing little adjustments to keep the cut straight or on the line. The same is true with a jigsaw and when you do a freehand cut you do loads of little adjustments to keep it on the line. If you use a rail you can have problems due to grain direction and other factors out of the control of the user.

Peter

I beg to differ. If you have a good bandsaw properly set up with the right blade you can get very straight cuts with the stock pushed firmly against the guide. It isn't necessarily easy, but when it is set up right it is vey sweet.
Expecting a jigsaw to do the same (or cut very large stuff) is clearly optimistic, but if a straight guided cut  is not possible with a jigsaw, why offer a special foot to use with a guide rail??!

Hi Richard,
Festool write in their manual that one should only cut 20 mm material with the foot for the track/guide rail. I did some cuts at the beginning of my review with the track in soft and hard wood and the cuts were really good. I think they are covering their backside.

I have had difficulties cutting free hand with my non Festool blades in materials over this thickness, Peter seemed to be happy with the results of the festool blades.

So yes you can use the rail but not to thick

Pip