Setting Toe In on Festool saws

[Rick Christopherson]

Jon,
I am updating the procedure in the TS55REQ manual to cover both cases. Even though the previous procedure is geared only toward matching 2 saws, the concept is the same. You would still complete the same procedure, except you would only be using 1 saw.

Because your saw is already significantly out of adjustment, you will likely have to repeat the procedure at least once to get the saw close to alignment before doing a final adjustment. Just make sure that each successive attempt cuts new wood on your test workpiece. Once the saw has made that cut, do not move the guide rail.

Also, the previous manual refers to a sheet of standard paper. This is actually too thin. It should be either folded paper or a thin business card to give you the recommended 0.004" of toe-in spacing. (Most business cards are actually thicker than this.) Also, before publishing the next manual, I will re-confirm that 0.004" is the correct recommendation. That number is quite a few years old, so I want to make sure it is up to date.

 

[JonSchuck]

Thanks for the response Rick.  Let me see if I got this.  I can't use the guide rail that is attached to the MFT as I can barely see under there much less stick a business card in there, so I clamp another piece of wood to another guide rail and cut it with the edge hanging off the edge of the MFT.  Then I loosen the four bolts and move the TS55 against the wood on the front and against the wood on the back
with a business card spacer.  Then I make another cut and repeat this until nothing changes. 
I just measured:
2 business cards that I got at the Tampa woodworking show last weekend - .011 in. (each)
playing card - .010 in.
computer paper - .003 in.
cover on Festool 2013 catalog - .009 in.

 

[Rick Christopherson]

Yes, that is correct.

 

[Birdhunter]

My TS55 cuts perfectly out of the Sustainer. How would I know if the saw needed toe-in adjustment?

 

[tbellemare]

TS55 cuts perfectly

That's the answer...

Tom

 

[Birdhunter]

What would one see if the saw needed toe in adjustment?

 

[tiralie]

What would one see if the saw needed toe in adjustment?

Chipping (melamine) and or splintering on the top edge of the good side when cross cutting (veneer).

 

[panelchat]

i identified toe in being off when investigating why screwed together panel joints were pretty consistently off 90 when making cabinets, meaning that the cross cut making the butt joint into another panel was off 90. they measured to 88 or so, which is way off if and will foul up your work you are joining panels to make cabinet boxes.

problem ended up being too much toe in. as i cut my panel pieces using a spoilboard, i was setting the blade depth to only 2-3mm past the underside of the workpiece.
since toe in technically means you are advancing the cutting element in an elliptical section or path, then too much will effectively take your cut off 90 degrees even if the blade is oriented perpendicular to the shoe surface of the saw. and this will be exaggerated if you are operating with a shallow blade depth.

not sure if this makes sense without a pic, but in short: one symptom toe in being way off can be having a hard time getting really 90 degree butt joints. it might not be visible until the joint is done, when the out of 90 is easily seen/measured as it is compounded over a the length of the components assembled.

one other thing here was that all my splinter guard strips were compromised- the few deep plunge cuts i made brought the cutting teeth closer to the guard, so it cut in too deep, making the guard no longer fully effective.

don't know why my saw was doing this, as it was never dropped and i'm the only user. i ended up suspecting it was shipped this way...

 

[JSands]

birdhunter, I know, frustrating when you ask a fair, and sensible question, and....... 
From my experience, the answer to this depends.    It depends on how extreme the toe-in is, AND, what you are cutting, AND how sharp your blade is.  Generally speaking, when your blade goes through the wood at a different angle vs. the saws travel path, the sides of the teeth will mark or burn the edges of the cut, mainly the back of the blade, as the front does the cutting.  Or as mentioned, possibly splinter up laminates, sometimes.  With low density MDF, its hard to see anything.  Also, the slower the travel speed, the greater chance of burn / swirl marks. 

Panelchat, I fully get your post...no pix required.  The greater the toe-in, the greater the "out of 90" you end up with using the MFT.  The reason for this is.... after you finish a cut with with MFT, if u end the cut when the front of the teeth just hit the end of the board, and stop there....well, you will surely end up with an non true cut if you have toe-in.  (or toe-out of course)  And yes, this small error is exaggerated over long lengths.    If you continue cutting till the rear of the blade passes through the end of the board, you should get back to 90.  The reason is, a toe-in creates a thinner kerf at the very front of the cut, vs. the rear of the cut.  At the start of a cut, say 1/4" into the cut, the kerf of the of the cut = blade kerf.  After pushing the rear of the blade past this point, the kerf will increase width, the amount of toe-in (or toe-out).  So for starters, always push the rear of the blade past the end of the board before ending the cut, this should cancel the the toe-in error, and hopefully if all else is right, a true 90. 

If you want to check the amount of toe in, simply make two cuts on equal size (length) wood.  First cut a 1/2" wide scrap...measure scrap length, cut through, with rail at 90, stop saw as soon as wood seperates... measure scrap length, the difference in length should equal blade kerf.    Next cut, get a wider piece, 1ft is enough.... same procedure, except, cut all the way through, so rear of blade passes end of board before turning off saw (securely clamp down the cut off piece to assure it does NOT move after front of teeth pass end of board) .... join two cut pieces, determine length reduction...subtract from first kerf, and this = your toe in.   

I have always wondered why Festool states the "good piece" should reside under the rail, and the cut-off (waste) on the other side.  My guess is... toe-in is the only option, as if you toe-out, the rear of the blade will cut the splinter guard further back and defeat its purpose for the front of the blade, as the front of the blade does the cutting.  With toe-in, the waste piece runs the risk of blade marks.  So your question is valid, why not keep the blade parallel with the track?  I would be interested in hearing this response as well.  My thought is, the arbor will eventually develop some play and wander a tiny bit... potentially risking swirl marks on both sides of the work piece.  A slight toe-in assures a CLEAN cut for the wood under the track.  Shane, would you agree? 

 

[billg71]

Extra heavy stock or regular or thin?  I have never had to mess with the toe on my saw. But I have always had a problem with the idea of card or paper methods for setting things that need to be fairly precise in small measurements. Seems like the difference in thickness of the card would be enough to throw this off.

But maybe there is an official Festool Blade Toe In business card  [big grin]

Actually Festool could market that in a Micro Systainer  [thumbs up]

Seth

And charge a hundred bucks for it!  [thumbs up]

I must be missing something here. So we toe the back of the blade out to provide the finest finish cut on the left side of the blade, right? But what about the offcut? It has the back of the blade toed in to it and presumably suffers.

Say, for example, that you're using the parallel guides to make multiple rips or crosscutting them on the MFT. The boogered-up offcut is now your reference edge, right? So all your pieces after the first have one clean edge and one with saw marks? Makes no dif if all the scarred edges are turned to the back of the work but now I have to worry about which rip gets turned which way? Since we stop cutting as soon as the blade breaks through, now we have a nub the thickeness of a piece of paper or business card or whatever left at the end of the offcut. And the next cut references one end off that nub? Not good...

Makes no sense to me....

Bill

 

[ccarrolladams]

And charge a hundred bucks for it!  [thumbs up]

I must be missing something here. So we toe the back of the blade out to provide the finest finish cut on the left side of the blade, right? But what about the offcut? It has the back of the blade toed in to it and presumably suffers.

Say, for example, that you're using the parallel guides to make multiple rips or crosscutting them on the MFT. The boogered-up offcut is now your reference edge, right? So all your pieces after the first have one clean edge and one with saw marks? Makes no dif if all the scarred edges are turned to the back of the work but now I have to worry about which rip gets turned which way? Since we stop cutting as soon as the blade breaks through, now we have a nub the thickeness of a piece of paper or business card or whatever left at the end of the offcut. And the next cut references one end off that nub? Not good...

Makes no sense to me....

Bill

Actually once I discovered the toe-in setting which works best for me, I surface ground a stainless steel feeler gauge. Festool has a proprietary tooling fixture they use.

So, this toe-in makes no sense? You realize well performing table saws have toe-in relative to the rip fence. So do pressure beam saws, which you can think of as a Festool TS55 being power driven underneath its guide rail with another on the other side of the wood and a pair on the off cut side as well, with all those rails pressing the work to minimize tear out.

The reason with an appropriately ground blade the off cut is glue ready on a long rail and on an MFT is the design of the blade.

Think about this when selecting a non-Festool blade to save a little money.

Festool is all about a system, which includes a designated toe-in as well as blade design. Of course your milage may vary. 

 

[JSands]

Bill, you got it right..... but its not quite as bad as you make it sound 
assuming your saw is adjusted with either no toe in, or only the tiny amount which is suggested above, maybe .003". 
Agreed, the most demanding of the toe-in is for hardwood strips, where you use both sides of the cut.    The less toe in, the better, assuming your arbor has no play.  So maybe the age of the saw, the hours of use and abuse comes into play. 
The arbor on my TS75 is rock solid, its only a few years old, min. use, well treated...  my toe-in is negligible, prob. less than the .003".  I can use both sides of my cuts.  However, there was a time when my toe in became too great, and the cut-off piece was getting some slight swirl marks.  quick re adjust, prob. solved.
On hardwoods, I always take a few swipes with a hand plane, and its perfect.  On sheet goods, often the edges are not that critical as they are rarely exposed.  Remember also, there is the human element as well, such as changing hand directional force throughout the cut, rail flex, rail straightness (which is why I nearly always use single rails now, as joining rails adds another variable to contend with). 
In the end, I can make 6ft cuts that are pretty damn straight, rivaling a sliding saw....considering the price and portable nature of the Festool system, well, IMO it's impressive, albeit, a little planning and foresight is sometimes helpful.    Try pushing a long board through a cabinet saw with ONE person and not getting any swirl marks on either side of the cut....you need perfectly even pressure against the fence, no pinching, consistent speed, a near perfect reference edge, no fence flex, etc.  I have a better chance of success with the Festool rail system.    Hope this helps.

 

[Birdhunter]

I'm just a retired engineer, but it seems having the blade as parallel to the track as possible would be optimal. I have my Sawstop adjusted within 0.001 of parallel to both the miter slot and fence. Why would a track saw be different?

 

[ccarrolladams]

I'm just a retired engineer, but it seems having the blade as parallel to the track as possible would be optimal. I have my Sawstop adjusted within 0.001 of parallel to both the miter slot and fence. Why would a track saw be different?

Apparently half of us on the FOG are engineers, active duty or retired.

Short answer is that without toe-in on a track saw binding and kick-back are major problems. Sawing many forms of plywood there is less release of tension, but with other plywoods this is an issue. Ripping solid lumber, binding is a real problem.

Therefore the Festool engineers designed their track saws to use some toe-in and then designed blades to take appropriate advantage of that toe-in.

Most of us set up table saws with minimal toe-in when only sawing sheet material and with more toe-in when a table saw is used for ripping lumber. Then we select blades intended for the amount of toe-in we have set. Commonly table saw ripping blades are designed to use toe-in while finer tooth plywood blades for table saws need much less toe-in.

I do not use my many TS55s to rip lumber. I have a shop full of saws to do that. So I ground my feeler gauge to ensure the toe-in extensive experience sawing the particular plywoods I use produces the best glue-ready cuts with the Festool Fine Tooth blades I use for these cuts in plywood.

Table saws and track saws are different with different safety issues and available power. Why would we assume a toe-in setting for a table saw predicts the toe-in setting of a track saw?

Clearly if your experience and mileage varies, set your toe-in to help you.

 

[Rick Christopherson]

Toe-in is to minimize tearout on the primary side of the cut. It has nothing to do with kickback or safety. The slight toe-in ensures that only the leading edge of the blade is cutting the primary side of the cut, and between the upwardly traveling teeth and the splinter guard, this give splinter free cuts on both top and bottom surfaces. Without this small amount of toe-in, you would experience more bottom-side tearout on the primary side of the cut. It is not as big of a deal as is being made of it here. It is only a few thousandths of an inch.

 

[billg71]

CIC and Jsands, thanks for the input.

Honestly, I'd never thought about it before, my 55 is factory stock at whatever toe-in and I've never seen a need for adjustment. But all the posts in this thread got me thinking(always a dangerous thing  : ) and the more I thought the less I could make sense of it all.

I set my table saw fence to toe out .002-.004 over the 27" depth of the table but folks here are suggesting that I toe in a 6-1/4" blade .010-.012"(thickness of a business card)? Got curious and checked and best I can tell you get 6" of the blade in the cut at full plunge, that translates to an equivalent on the table saw of .045-054"?

But in my normal use of the TS55, cutting 3/4 ply, I have around 4-1/8" of the blade in the cut. Call the toe-in around .007-008" effective which still translates to .028-.048" on a 27" deep table saw, somewhat less since I'm doing the arithmetic in my head but still 'way beyond what I've ever seen recommended.

I can see where it really doesn't matter and the errors don't start adding up unless you start cutting 8" shelves out of an 8' rip but it still bothers me. Just like Birdhunter, it seems to me there's something less than optimal going on here.

But my  saw cuts great so I'll not worry about it until it doesn't.

Thanks again,
Bill

P.S. not retired but spent some time as an engineer   One of the first things I learned was that if it works don't fix it.

 

[JSands]

bill71, yep, does seem extreme when you up-size the figures to a cabinet saw.  But, hard to compare a lightweight hand held tool to a heavy over-sized stationary tool.  My guess is, you can only get so much rigidity in a small tool, tolerances will not last forever, they give over time.  The toe in is the insurance policy for such.  Agreed, if the TS55 had near perfect arbor runout tolerance its entire life, prob. toe in would not be required.  but a few thou protects against any play that develops, or blade inconsistencies, etc.  Not so bad...

Interesting how ya learn something new all the time on these boards...I was unaware the Festool blades are optimized with with this toe in angle taken into consideration.  This might be the reason why the cut-off piece, in most all cases, is pretty darn clean, at least  from my experience.  Of course, it took me a few months to really optimize my cutting method...keep long cuts clamped, push 70% down, 30% forward...the flex in the track and flex in the saw prob. plays a bigger role in swirl marks vs. this toe in issue.  As you mention, hard to argue with the results, that is what matters....

 

[Rick Christopherson]

bill71, yep, does seem extreme when you up-size the figures to a cabinet saw. 

I didn't want to comment at the time, but the two "scalings" are not the same. The tablesaw is a change from parallel, but the TS55 is a blade skew, but the parallelism of the path remains parallel.

YUP! I know that didn't make a bit of sense, and that is why I didn't comment earlier. It would take me a while to fully put it into words, and I am limited on my free time at the moment.

 

[billg71]

bill71, yep, does seem extreme when you up-size the figures to a cabinet saw. 

I didn't want to comment at the time, but the two "scalings" are not the same. The tablesaw is a change from parallel, but the TS55 is a blade skew, but the parallelism of the path remains parallel.

YUP! I know that didn't make a bit of sense, and that is why I didn't comment earlier. It would take me a while to fully put it into words, and I am limited on my free time at the moment.

Rick,

You're right, I'm even more confused now. ???  ???

I'd be interested to hear more when you get some time.

Thanks,
Bill

 

[Birdhunter]

I'm with Bill. My Festool TS55 track saw cuts perfectly with factory settings and my Sawstop Industrial table saw cuts perfectly with factory settings ( I did have to adjust the fence). I'm not changing anything.