Trion for ripping thick stock?

[Ned]

In another thread...

...Anyone use the Trion with the guide rail to make rip cuts in >2" hardwoods? I was thinking of trying this when the TS55 runs out of depth. It would not be very often so I would not mind a slower cut. I just want a clean, straight edge.

I have exactly the same question as bdog01.  Anyone use a rail or the Trion's parallel guide for deep rips?

 

[bdog01]

My next Festool order will include the Trion guide rail attachment so I can give this a try. I will report back how it goes.

 

[Tinker]

I used the trion for ripping some thick pine. It was a situation where quite a bit of the board length was unsupported and the piece was narrow.  I was not sure how well my jury rig clamping was going to hold up with cutting a 12 foot piece of wood that was only supported for 4 feet of its total length, even with the joined together set of guide bars over the top.  I felt everything would hold to gether but it would have been foolish to have found out by using the ATF 55 for such experimenting.  It was much safer to go with the trion even with more vibration.  In the end, I had absolutely no problem.  The cut was not as smooth as I would have liked, but the edge was going to be exposed (no glue up) and sanding served the purpose quite well. 

I think it would have worked with the ATF, but years of working with Milwaukee circular saws have me conditioned to the hazard of making such an unsuported cut, even with all of the clamping I used.
Tinker

 

[Dan Lyke]

I haven't used it on the guide, but I have used the long blade to try to rip some 5" or so thick madrone branches we had here. Took a maul down one side to try to give a flat surface. The cut worked nicely, the problem was the twisting grain meant that the "flat surface" wasn't, so I have some twisted boards.

But I'll gladly try again once I figure a better way to hold the saw. The rail guide for the Trion really requires a large amount of flat...

 

[woodshopdemos]

I don't know about the Trion for ripping thick timbers, but I have used the TS55 to do just this in a work and turn method.

Here is the story:http://www.woodshopdemos.com/fes-sc-1.htm

 

[Ned]

Thanks, John, I'd forgot that option.

 

[Tim Sproul]

I just finished up making many cuts in 4x green doug fir and I've also tried in 8/4 and 12/4 air-dried black walnut.

The blades that Festool sells do poorly for rip cuts.  They're great for crosscutting....but just don't do as well on rip cuts and the jig saw doesn't do well if the surface you're sawing isn't flat.....as soon as you tilt the saw sideways a bit during a cut, jump-city.  My guess is that the chips in a rip saw operation are larger and more difficult to clear compared to a crosscut.  Jigsaws in general are pretty notorious for having difficulty clearing chips when sawing thick material and if rip sawing makes the chips more difficult to clear than crosscutting....  I make this comment because rip sawing performance is nearly as good as crosscutting in thinner stock.

I recently decided to get the TS75 so that I could rip up to 10/4 rough stock to width and let the roughed out pieces acclimate a bit before milling 4-square.  Prior to that, I pulled out a large ryoba....and still will sometimes or would push that stock through my table saw if an edge and adjacent face were true enough.  My itty bitty 14 inch bandsaw didn't like me after I tried to use it for ripping large sticks down to size.

 

[clintholeman]

I just finished up making many cuts in 4x green doug fir and I've also tried in 8/4 and 12/4 air-dried black walnut.

The blades that Festool sells do poorly for rip cuts.  They're great for crosscutting....but just don't do as well on rip cuts and the jig saw doesn't do well if the surface you're sawing isn't flat.....as soon as you tilt the saw sideways a bit during a cut, jump-city. 
My itty bitty 14 inch bandsaw didn't like me after I tried to use it for ripping large sticks down to size.

Which blade were you using?  I've ripped 8/4 wood of several different species and haven't had lots of trouble - except for purple heart and the like.  Almost anything softer has worked pretty well. 

Admittedly I don't do it often, as I use my ATF 65 and flip it - it is faster for me to do that way.  Still the Trion has worked ok.  I talked with FesTool tech support and he recommended some blades to use.  I'll have to check and see what they are...

 

[Tim Sproul]

Which blade were you using? 

The gold colored blade (at least at starts off gold out of the package).  S 145 for the 4x and the 105 length for 10/4 stuff.

Perhaps I should qualify my above comments.  The ripping performance is acceptable, just quite a bit slower than crosscutting in thick (8/4 or thicker) material and only marginally slower in thinner material (4/4).

 

[Dave Ronyak]

Recently, I needed to cut a pair of pressure treated SYP 2X12 to form the elliptically arched support members for an 8 ft span foot bridge for my wife's garden.  I tried using Festool HS 145/4 FSG blades (part No. 490 179) which have about 6.5 TPI, first on the clamped pair of 2X12s without much success, so I tried them on a single 2X12, again without much success.  In each trial, the Festool blades required a hard push to slowly advance through the board(s).  The boards were damp from its pressure treatment.  Was the paint on the Festool blade aggravating the drag?  Thereafter, I tried a Makita BR13 blade which has about 9 TPI and for about 1/2 inch nearest the bayonet end, has reversed teeth and a slight taper (when viewed from the side, the width of blade portion having reversed teeth increases toward the bayonet end.  What a world of difference!  The Makita blade sailed through the boards, but due to its shorter length, I had to cut the boards one at a time.  I gave up on using these Festool blades even though I had purchased them for jobs like this one.  Has anyone else had a similar experience?  Both blades are advertised as being designed to cut wood.  Both are made of steel with set teeth, but the Makita has no paint coating - it looks like the blued steel of a gun barrel.