Greg_R said:
Last year (as a hobbiest) I build a 14' long set of built-in bookshelves and only used a TS55, guide rail, and chop saw for the cuts. A well tuned TS + stop jigs would have been faster for cutting all the rails. The biggest drawback to the Festool system that I've seen so far is the inability to cut super-small parts (a bandsaw + jig or a handsaw would be a non-TS solution to that problem).
What do you refer to as "super-small parts"? I made some small coasters and cheese boards a year ago. I put a thin border, about 3/16" by 7/16" all around the cheese boards. The corners of those small border strips were joined with a 45? angle bevel. the angles were cut as an afterthought. When I cut the stips, I thought it would be impossible to cut the 45? angles with the ATF 55. They were going t be butt jionts. I decided to try angled cuts.
The first trial was laying the strips flat and tipping the saw blade to 45?. That turned out to be a real PITA. The ATF is very difficult to set a bevel angle by tipping the blade. At least I found it so. I had problems with the strips flying away from the blade. I suppose if I made my angle cuts on thicker pieces and then cut to thickness, it might have been easy. When that method failed, i then tried standing the strips on edge and angling the strips by setting up my MFS against the MFT fence (MFT 1080) Using a backer of same thickness as the width of the strips, it was a snap. Every edge strip came out purfik at every corner.
I then played around making thinner strips and cutting angle joints with same method. Seemed to work ok for me.
To answer the OP, I have very little working space in my shop. Before I got into the tool buying (slippppperyyyy slope), I did a couple of additions on my house, built a small barn and did several site projects with only a RAS. Once I decided to step up to a table saw, I retired the RAS to the barn where it is now collecting lotsarust. Once i set up the Table saw, a whole lot of other toys became necessary and space began to shrink around them. And then I was introduced to the ATF, MFT and CT's and I now have many more toys to play with. The Table saw is keeping company with the RAS. Because i have to spend considerable time scratching my head before figuring out many problems with Festoy setups, I don't think i work as efficiently as I did with the TS. Certainly not as efficient as with the RAS. If I had t cut back to just one toy again, I would cleanup that old RAS and put the TS further back in a corner. But it is most fun with the Festoy collection.
I don't miss the TS. Part of that is that I find I can work in a much smaller space with the ATF 55/MFT 1080; altho I do drool somewhat when I look at the temptation of a new TS 55/MFT3 combo. :
Tinker
. I have no idea why they build it that way.
