I took advantage of the Router promotion at the end of last year and bought the Plexiglas template as an accessory for my OF2200 router. I do a lot of mortising and groves in my work and I liked the idea of getting an accessory that would offer good support of the router, reduce tipping and that was easy to adjust. The Plexiglas template seemed like it would do the trick.
The template comes in a box and it is well packaged to prevent any damage. It includes all of the hardware to mount it to any of the Festool plunge routers as well as the instruction booklet.
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It is straightforward to install on the router – simply align the holes in the template to whatever router you are installing it on and you are good to go. I will point out that on my router, you can actually mount the template so that the vacuum port is in front of or behind the router. While I would generally have it behind the router to aid in chip removal, you can install it the other way for certain cuts or procedures such as climb cutting.
The template itself is pretty stout. It is made out of thick Plexiglas and it is roughly 13 3/8 inches long by 6 3/8 inches wide. The sides are approximately 3 inches tall to the bottom of the base and 3 5/8 inches from the top of the base to the bottom. The hole is about 1 1/8 inches in diameter and can accomodate most common diameter spiral or straight bits. The sides are fully adjustable to accommodate varying thicknesses of material from approximately 13/32 to 4 5/8 of an inch. Each side or fence is adjustable by itself and there are knobs on each side that lock it in place. This is important when you are trying to center the template on a cutline as you can move the side in an out on all four points to line it up perfectly. This setup also allows you to adjust the “grip” of the template to the work. Since it slides along the edge of the work you want it snug enough to stay in position, but tight enough to ensure an accurate cut. The knobs allow you to dial it in. I will say that this template provides a lot of stability to the router, especially important on narrow edges. I have plenty of starting and stopping room for grooves that run the length of the stock and there is plenty of support before and after the cut. It also eliminates tipping, which greatly reduces the chance to spoil the work piece.
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There are center marks across the top and down the length of the template and allow you to easily line up the template to your layout marks. Making stopped cuts or mortises in the middle of the board is easy as you can center the cut and start and stop the cut precisely. If you are doing a lot of mortises in the same thickness of material you only need to center the template on the first work piece and then mark you start and stop points on the other work pieces to save you time. Another nice thing about this router guide is that it has integrated rulers on each end of the template. This allows you to adjust the width with accuracy.
As with other Festool tools and accessories, dust collection was not an afterthought. The integrated port allows you to hook up a secondary vacuum line to the template. This really helps clear out the mortise of dust and chips as you make the cut. I find that having a larger 36mm hose on the router and the 27mm hose connected to the template hooked to the CT vacuum through a Y adaptor eliminates virtually all of the dust and chips.
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The Plexiglas template is versatile and it allows you to complete a variety of grooving and slotting cuts quickly and easily. You can use the template horizontally to rout the bottoms of doors, for example, or to put some inlay in the side of a table edge. One limitation to the template is that your work piece needs to be tall enough to accommodate the sides of the fences or you need to be able to support your work to allow for clearance. Otherwise it will not seat properly on your stock or you may not have enough plunge-depth to make the cut you need if you slide it along the edges of the fences. With the integrated scales on the base, you could also use the template as a guide for fluting on narrower rails and stiles and this would be more secure than using a single edge guide.
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You can also use MDF shims of different thicknesses to accommodate narrower stock than 13/32 or if you wanted to make the male portion of sliding dovetails. While I have not yet used it to cut the male portion of a sliding dovetail, this is one of the reasons I could justify the cost and Jerry Work and Brice Burrell have excellent tutorials on using this template for these purposes. Brice also had the idea of taping MDF templates to the inside of the pieces to allow for these types of cuts without modifying the template itself.
While the Plexiglas template is not for everyone, I have found it to be a useful addition to my shop and I am glad that I have it. The $264 price may be high for many users, but this is a quality built accessory that makes routing grooves and slots faster, easier and very accurate. It is one of those overlooked accessories, but I think that if you do this type of work, then it may very well be worth the cost of admission.
The template comes in a box and it is well packaged to prevent any damage. It includes all of the hardware to mount it to any of the Festool plunge routers as well as the instruction booklet.
[attachthumb=#]
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It is straightforward to install on the router – simply align the holes in the template to whatever router you are installing it on and you are good to go. I will point out that on my router, you can actually mount the template so that the vacuum port is in front of or behind the router. While I would generally have it behind the router to aid in chip removal, you can install it the other way for certain cuts or procedures such as climb cutting.
The template itself is pretty stout. It is made out of thick Plexiglas and it is roughly 13 3/8 inches long by 6 3/8 inches wide. The sides are approximately 3 inches tall to the bottom of the base and 3 5/8 inches from the top of the base to the bottom. The hole is about 1 1/8 inches in diameter and can accomodate most common diameter spiral or straight bits. The sides are fully adjustable to accommodate varying thicknesses of material from approximately 13/32 to 4 5/8 of an inch. Each side or fence is adjustable by itself and there are knobs on each side that lock it in place. This is important when you are trying to center the template on a cutline as you can move the side in an out on all four points to line it up perfectly. This setup also allows you to adjust the “grip” of the template to the work. Since it slides along the edge of the work you want it snug enough to stay in position, but tight enough to ensure an accurate cut. The knobs allow you to dial it in. I will say that this template provides a lot of stability to the router, especially important on narrow edges. I have plenty of starting and stopping room for grooves that run the length of the stock and there is plenty of support before and after the cut. It also eliminates tipping, which greatly reduces the chance to spoil the work piece.
[attachthumb=#]
[attachthumb=#]
There are center marks across the top and down the length of the template and allow you to easily line up the template to your layout marks. Making stopped cuts or mortises in the middle of the board is easy as you can center the cut and start and stop the cut precisely. If you are doing a lot of mortises in the same thickness of material you only need to center the template on the first work piece and then mark you start and stop points on the other work pieces to save you time. Another nice thing about this router guide is that it has integrated rulers on each end of the template. This allows you to adjust the width with accuracy.
As with other Festool tools and accessories, dust collection was not an afterthought. The integrated port allows you to hook up a secondary vacuum line to the template. This really helps clear out the mortise of dust and chips as you make the cut. I find that having a larger 36mm hose on the router and the 27mm hose connected to the template hooked to the CT vacuum through a Y adaptor eliminates virtually all of the dust and chips.
[attachthumb=#]
The Plexiglas template is versatile and it allows you to complete a variety of grooving and slotting cuts quickly and easily. You can use the template horizontally to rout the bottoms of doors, for example, or to put some inlay in the side of a table edge. One limitation to the template is that your work piece needs to be tall enough to accommodate the sides of the fences or you need to be able to support your work to allow for clearance. Otherwise it will not seat properly on your stock or you may not have enough plunge-depth to make the cut you need if you slide it along the edges of the fences. With the integrated scales on the base, you could also use the template as a guide for fluting on narrower rails and stiles and this would be more secure than using a single edge guide.
[attachthumb=#]
You can also use MDF shims of different thicknesses to accommodate narrower stock than 13/32 or if you wanted to make the male portion of sliding dovetails. While I have not yet used it to cut the male portion of a sliding dovetail, this is one of the reasons I could justify the cost and Jerry Work and Brice Burrell have excellent tutorials on using this template for these purposes. Brice also had the idea of taping MDF templates to the inside of the pieces to allow for these types of cuts without modifying the template itself.
While the Plexiglas template is not for everyone, I have found it to be a useful addition to my shop and I am glad that I have it. The $264 price may be high for many users, but this is a quality built accessory that makes routing grooves and slots faster, easier and very accurate. It is one of those overlooked accessories, but I think that if you do this type of work, then it may very well be worth the cost of admission.
