TS55 Guide Rail Splinter Guard

[Bunzena]

Hi - need some advice please. 

Recently had my TS55 REQ returned by Festool after a warranty claim.  After re-aligning it back to the rail on my MFT/3 - I noticed after the first cut, the blade has removed another 1-2mm from the guide rail splinter guard.  There is now barely a millimetre of the splinter guard left next to the aluminium edge of the rail.  Clearly something that was done at Festool has shifted the orientation of the blade/baseplate to make this happen.

So I have three questions.

Does anyone have a view on how much of the splinter guard should be left on the rail once cut?

Will this very narrow strip still work effectively?

My final issue is whether I should now use this saw on any of my other rails.  The splinter guards on them were cut when the saw was new and have plenty of meat left on the strip.  If I run the 'warranty-fixed' saw down them - it will likely cut back the strip to what looks like a bare minimum too.

Views and opinions gratefully received.  Thanks.

 

[GarryMartin]

You say it removed more of the splinter strip *after* re-aligning it back to the rail? What did you do to re-align it? Do you mean re-adjusting the guide rollers or re-aligning for the existing splinter guard?

If just the former, then there is a process for aligning a saw to an existing rail, or multiple saws to a single rail. It's covered in the excellent Supplemental Manual for the TS 55 R by Rick Christopherson which can be downloaded from the link in my signature.

Given you have other rails that you don't want to cut too much off, you could align your saw to those following the instructions and then peel-off the splinter guard from the MFT rail and stick it back on a few mm over from where it was previously. If you've not done that before, there should be enough of the splinter guard remaining for you to do this.

My rails have about 2mm showing.

 

[Bunzena]

Thanks - very helpful!