Step by Step for the Festool Parallel Guides

Brice Burrell

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Step by Step for the Festool Parallel Guides by Brice Burrell

I've been surprised by the numbers of questions I've gotten about the use of the new Festool Parallel Guides. The concept seems simple enough, extruded aluminum story sticks with adjustable stops that attach to the guide rail. I'm not completely sure were all the confusion comes in but I recently had small job that Parallel Guides were perfect for so I took that opportunity to take my camera along to document the process.
I have a long time friend that tends to ignore his household chores and home improvement projects he's started. So when I received his phone call I had a pretty good idea his wife was reminding him to follow through on some of those projects he promised to do around the house. So I threw a few tools in my truck and headed out to give him a hand.
The job that required the Parallel Guides was ripping a sheet of MDF into 12" pieces for shelving. If you've ever handle full sheets of 3/4" MDF (about 80 lbs.) you know you want to move it as few times as possible. So out of the truck and onto saw horses was enough of moving the sheet for me. I'm using saw horses on this job because I wanted everything to be as easy as possible and the quality of the cuts weren't particularly important. Besides it really illustrates that even the simplest setup will work for sizing sheet goods with the Festool TS saw and Parallel Guides. I take the time to setup a nice cutting table when high quality cuts are needed.

Step One: Straight line cutting the first edge.
Trimming edge of the sheet is the first step, this is done without the Parallel guides on the rail. This cleans up any damaged to the edge and makes it perfectly straight. Material like MDF is oversized for this very reason but most some sheet goods aren't oversized so be sure to account for this first cut when figuring out what your sheet will yield.

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This cut can be as little as 1/16" but generally I like to take off enough to have some material on the offcut side of the blade, around 1/4" total. The goal is cut material the entire length of the sheet to make a perfectly straight edge and free of any imperfections. I'm using the 3000 mm rail but a couple of rail joined will work fine too. I'll use this clean straight edge to reference the stops on the Parallel Guides but first they'll need to be attached to the rail and that's the next step.

Step Two: Attaching the Guides to the rail.
The Guides attach to the rail at two points. The Guides have a lever on the bottom and knob on the top (on the T bracket), these lock the guide to the rail. Loosen the knob by turning it counter clockwise and flip the lever up.

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With the guide in the unlocked position slide it onto the rail by inserting the tab into the lower channel and the T bracket over the top channel on the rail, seen below.

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To lock the Guide flip the lever down flush with the guide and turn the knob clockwise until tight. The second Guide gets attached the same way but on the other end of the rail.

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Sliding the stops on is the next, they fit into the channels on the sides of the Guides. A lever locks the stops in place. The Guides have a scale marked in metric only, while converting inches into metric isn't hard it can be difficult to setting the stops to fraction of a millimeter. In the next step I'll show you a quick way around this problem.

More to come....

 
Step Three: Setting the stops on the Guides.
The adjustable stops fit into a channel in the side of the guides.
I want the sheet to be ripped into 12" wide pieces but the scales on the Guides are in metric. Sure I could set the stops to an approximate metric equivalent, 305 mm is pretty close to one foot. I usually measure, mark and set the rail (as I would have before owning the Parallel Guides) when I want to use inches with the Guides. This is the process, first I measure and mark my one foot from the fresh edge, then set the rail to my marks (with the Guides already on the rail). With the rail in place I butt the stops against the edge of the sheet and locking them down giving me a perfect 12 inches. Check out the photos on the next page to see the process in action.

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Measure and mark the work piece, they place the rail on your pencil marks.

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The butt the stops to edge of the sheet and lock them down.

With process getting the Guides to make perfect cuts in inches is easy. Of course in you prefer working in metric and you don't have use the process above, just set the stops on the scales and you're ready to go.

Step Four: Making the cuts.
I set the depth on my saw, attached the vac hose and plugged the saw in, with the setup out of the way I'm ready to start cutting. I tend to stand in between the two Guides so I don't have to step around them to make my cuts. Before you start to make your cut be sure to allow your saw to get up to full speed before you start your cut. Make the cut in one smooth continuous action.

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After the cut is completed I remove the saw from the rail and slide the offcut (in this case the remaining three feet of the sheet) over a few inches.

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Then I slide the rail/Guides over to the offcut piece to make the next cut.

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The stops fit into the space I made between the two pieces. Next, I push the rail until both stops are against the edge of the sheet.

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The first 12" piece can be moved out of the way now.

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The sheet with the rail and Guides in place are now moved closer to make the cut easy to reach. Then the process can start again. The whole process moves very quickly and in no time I've cut the sheet down to 12" pieces.

More to come...

 
Step Five: Clean up.
This is the easiest part, with the Festool plunge cut saw and extractor there isn't much to clean up.

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Even with a very simple cutting platform and in a small work space cutting down sheet goods can be done easily, accurately and safely by one person. If you've struggled trying to cut down sheet goods on the table saw, if you have a small shop or need a portable system for the jobsite the Parallel Guides might be for you. If you have an interest in this system out I'd strongly recommend going to an area Festool dealer to try them out. Good luck.

I've got this tutorial in PDF format that clean and easy to read and some some info and pictures, if anyone is interested.

 
Brice,

Grey "T" shirts are always in fashion [thumbs up]
I realize that this is just a tutorial for rips with guides. and a nice one at that [big grin].

My question is about work flow.

First lets say that you have a built-in project:  base cabinets/ desk with bookshelves. (Five to six sheets)

I am going to state a few assumptions correct them if they are off.

I assume that you have built it first in Sketch up.

I assume that you now have an exact cutlist based on your drawing.

I assume that you want to minimize your waste.  (to the point where you have a sheet break down schedule i don't know)

I assume that this is a Rush job from a client who will pay well as soon as it is Installed  IE a very high motivation to be Fast and accurate [drooling]

What is your work flow in breaking down sheet.

do you fully size each piece before moving them?  ie Do you use a sacrificial cutting surface and switch rails?

Rip on the horses and move the material to a scms or mft to crosscut?

Where in the process would you add in shelf pin holes?

Intermediate rips 54' - 80" rips in the field  how do the parallel guides work with joined rails when you making one and 2 off cuts?

Here you just finished a nice picture essay and I open up a whole new project for you...... [big grin]  But I  am guessing a Lot of others would find these answers Super helpful......besides I am trying to see if there is an advantage in efficiency to mft's and sawhorses, with parallel guides over what I am using now?

Thanks Craig

 
Brice Burrell said:
Step by Step for the Festool Parallel Guides by Brice Burrell

I've been surprised by the numbers of questions I've gotten about the use of the new Festool Parallel Guides. The concept seems simple enough, extruded aluminum story sticks with adjustable stops that attach to the guide rail. I'm not completely sure were all the confusion comes in...
Brice,

Very nice overview!

I'm one of the folks that has been a bit confused about Parallel Guides.  I kinda/sorta understood them, but they somehow didn't click.

I think the issue relates to how they are explained.  Most of the Parallel Guide descriptions focus on the small (sometimes microscopic) details.  Or they jump in the middle to explain the "neat features" but don't explain the beginning and end. 

Your step by step description starts with the assumption that the details are unimportant if you don't understand the big picture and overall process.  You provided the big picture. 

Nice work!

Regards,

Dan.
 
Dan Clark said:
Brice,

Very nice overview!

I'm one of the folks that has been a bit confused about Parallel Guides.   I kinda/sorta understood them, but they somehow didn't click.

I think the issue relates to how they are explained.   Most of the Parallel Guide descriptions focus on the small (sometimes microscopic) details.   Or they jump in the middle to explain the "neat features" but don't explain the beginning and end.   

Your step by step description starts with the assumption that the details are unimportant if you don't understand the big picture and overall process.   You provided the big picture.   

Nice work!

Regards,

Dan.

Dan, I had a hard time understanding what the misunderstanding or confusion was about. Finally when I stopped looking at each individual question and stepped back and focused all of the questions as a whole it became clear. It was just as you said, an overview or bigger picture was needed (or so I thought).
 
Charimon said:
Brice,

Grey "T" shirts are always in fashion [thumbs up]............

Craig, gray is my color, summer gray t shirt, spring and fall gray long sleeve t, winter gray sweatshirt. I guess I do own a few Festool shirts, other than the dark blue it's all gray baby.  ;D

Now you asked the million dollar question, the guys from the Festool cabinet class might be able to provide a better answer than I can. My (short) answer is I'm still trying to work out how the guides fit into my work flow.

So far they have worked well but I haven't really put them through any challenging work yet. I only used them when speed is a bigger factor than accuracy. I used them to rip MDO for soffits, Azek sheets for fascia, veneer ply and MDF for open shelving and OSB for backing for wainscoting. These applications fit the guides perfectly. These materials are either heavy or floppy and hard to run through a jobsite table saw. With the guides I can bang this stuff out by myself. 

As of right now the parallel guides are just like my RO125, I like them both but I'm not getting all I can out them. I use my RO125 on the tough sanding jobs and it works great in that application. However, its capable of doing more, if I wanted to take the time to learn to use it a finish sander it could do that too. Right now I get all I need out the RO125 because I have other finish sanders. The guides are much the same way, I getting speed but I haven't yet tried to expand what I can do with them. I guess I'm focusing on each tool's strengths, that's what I'm most comfortable with. After all I trying to make a living and that's harder to do when your not completely within your comfort zone. When time allows I hope to work out a good system for the guides. I guess I'm saying is my table saws still see their share of work.

You have posed some very good questions and I'd be interested in hearing what others have to say on this topic.   

   
 
Nice overview there, Brice.

If I ever get into working with large sheets, I'd likely get the Parallel Guides. They appear very to be very useful.

The concept of the Parallel Guides is similiar to my MFT storyboard, but for large stock instead of small stock.

With the Parallel Guildes, are you able to trim narrow stock? Eg. trim 1/8" of of a 1" wide piece of lumber.

Also, are you able to comfortably work with stock thicker and thinner than 3/4"?

Rey
 
Working with stock thicker is no problem, thinner and the stock needs to be shimmed to be the same thickness as the guides. Narrow stock, well if its as thick as the guides you can cut it easily. Less than the guides it's not easy but doable if you really wanted to.
 
Thanks for the tutorial Brice.  The pictures and explanation of each step make me feel like I was right there with you doing the job.
 
WarnerConstCo. said:
I am on the fence, something looks cumbersome, or I am not sure at all [scratch chin]

I bought a pair of the guides for an onsite job about 6 months ago. I ended up not using them because I was able to make all of the cuts in the shop with a tablesaw.
I never did figure out how to use them correctly. At the end user class last week we were shown how to use them. If you need to rip several pieces to the same width, the guide rails really shine by saving time & reducing errors. They also make it easier to align a rail to marks on an 8' long sheet when making just one cut when working by your self, for those like me that do not have as good of eyesite as I used to. I can set the stops on the guides & then not have to go from end to end to be sure the rail is on the marks. 
 
I'm not sure if these will be a good purchase or not. 

I don't do a lot of repetitive cutting but occasionally need to.  I'm more interested in not having to check each end of a sheet to see if it's moved slightly off my line.  to be really precise,  these will be exact.  by going without them, you may be a 1/64 or 1/32 off just in the thickness of a pencil line.  also, it's tough if you work outside to see the pencil mark in the shadow of the black rubber cutting edge on the rails.

Is there something missing on those rails or maybe I'm thinking of another addition to the guide rails with the curved pieces that go under where the blade rides?

 
ApgarConstruction said:
I'm not sure if these will be a good purchase or not.   

I don't do a lot of repetitive cutting but occasionally need to.   I'm more interested in not having to check each end of a sheet to see if it's moved slightly off my line.  to be really precise,   these will be exact.   by going without them, you may be a 1/64 or 1/32 off just in the thickness of a pencil line.   also, it's tough if you work outside to see the pencil mark in the shadow of the black rubber cutting edge on the rails.

Is there something missing on those rails or maybe I'm thinking of another addition to the guide rails with the curved pieces that go under where the blade rides?

THose are the extensions for them, used for making really narrow rips.
 
Nice overview, Brice.  Seeing your pictures helped me with a paradigm shift that I needed to see to understand more fully.  In your first photo, you're cutting from near to far, pretty much as most of us do, yet in a later photo, with the parallel guides set up, you're cutting the opposite direction.  I just had to see that to make the connection in my own mind.  It seems awkward, but it works well, and the results are very consistent, especially in a production environment.  Thanks! 

[smile] 
 
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