TS55,MTF/3 and cutting narrow stock

[ForumMFG]

How do you guys cut narrow stock with your TS and MFT?

The other day when I was cutting down a piece of 1 1/2" thick maple x 4" wide x 20" long to 3" wide x 20" long I noticed while the saw is on the rail, it tends to lean over because the guiderail is not fully supported by the wood I'm cutting underneath.  My thoughts were to add a spacer or something to fill that void.  Being that it's only 4" wide now, you really don't have a good fence to square it up.  You can't rotate the angle stop to make it parallel to the guiderail  because it would interfere with the guiderail supports.  You can leave the angle stop perpendicular to the guiderail but have fun trying to square up 3" and keep it square.

Thoughts anyone?

 

[Brice Burrell]

There is really only one good way and that is a piece the same thickness under the rail to add support. 

 

[Neill]

There is really only one good way and that is a piece the same thickness under the rail to add support. 

Dave,

As usual Brice is right on the money.  You might also consider a piece of masking tape to secure the pieces to each other while you are making the cut.

Neill

 

[rwdawson]

You might also consider a piece of masking tape to secure the pieces to each other while you are making the cut.

That is such a simple, obvious, and effective idea, it makes me a little mad at myself for not thinking of it first.

Great suggestion, Neill.

Richard

 

[MarkF]

You might also consider a piece of masking tape to secure the pieces to each other while you are making the cut.

Neill

This needs to go into the Blinding Flash of the Obvious Hall of Fame!  Thanks Neill!

 

[ForumMFG]

Last night I set up my MFT with my 55" rail to rip a piece of maple.  I put the rail on top of the wood and made my first cut.  I notice that the wood was sliding as I made my cut.  So I used my quick clamps to clamp the guide rail to the MFT.  When you do this, it seems that the guide bubbles in the middle because you are clamping it on both ends.  You can loosen the clamps to take care of this but then it's not doing the job, the wood will still move.  How do you guys take care of this issue? 

 

[Brice Burrell]

One hand on the saw and the other pushing down on the rail to prevent the piece from moving, works for me. On Friday last week I cut a 81" tapper out of a thin scrap piece of 1X, maybe only 3/4" wide. The tapper went from 3/16" to 0, I was able to make the cut without the piece moving. Obviously I used a cutting table not the MFT.

 

[paul_david_thomas]

I'd go for the option of addition material of the same thickness under the guide. However I do sometimes under-mount my TS55 under my CMS and turn the TS55 into a tablesaw, thus i can work on any thickness then....

 

[Brice Burrell]

I'd go for the option of addition material of the same thickness under the guide......

That was assumed since we already covered that above. Did you try the same thickness stock trick?

 

[ForumMFG]

I did do that and it worked but this was a different application.  I had a piece of 1 1/4" maple that was 20" x 35" and I needed to cut it long ways on the MFT.  After I clamped the guide rail to the MFT, the guide rail deflected up and that was because there was to much clamping force on the rails.  If you loosen up the clamps to take the deflection up, then it's way to loose.

So for this application the guide rail was fully supported underneath.

 

[ForumMFG]

Yes they where.  Listen, I'm obviously doing something wrong but it's not obvious to me.  This past month I went festool crazy and I'm learning so much that I'm not seeing the obvious fixes.  It was not just a little deflection it was bending up quite a bit.

Brice, if you have time can you explain how you did that cut.  I'm trying to picture this in my mind.  If you went from 0 to 3/16" then that means you either had nothing under the guide rail (which you most likely didn't do), had a spacer under the guide rail, or your cut off was under the guide rail and you offset your cut line the thickness of the saw blade so your keep was outside the guiderail?  Like I said I'm learning about tackling projects different ways so forgive me if these questions are not up to your level.

 

[Brice Burrell]

No problem I can explain, I did have a spacer under the rail that was the same thickness, anytime the work piece isn't as wide I always try to use spacer. As you've surely figured by now the piece you want goes under the rail and the right of rail is the offcut. Sometimes I do add account for the thickness of the saw blade when making these kinds by not always. In the case with long 3/16" to 0 taper I didn't. that's right there was only 3/16 of an inch under the rail on one end and nothing under the other. With my free hand I applied downward pressure to edge of the rail directly over the piece, this prevented it form moving during the cut. I kept moving my hand along to keep pressure in from of the saw. Cutting really small pieces isn't as easy or safe as larger one but it can be done. Let me know if that makes sense. 

 

[ForumMFG]

Thanks Brice, I had figured all this out before my first posting, but I was convinced that there was a better way to do it.  I honestly thought there was a flaw in the system trying to make any small cuts smaller than the gudie rail.  Thanks for all the info, very helpfull

 

[Brice Burrell]

Thanks Brice, I had figured all this out before my first posting, but I was convinced that there was a better way to do it.  I honestly thought there was a flaw in the system trying to make any small cuts smaller than the gudie rail.  Thanks for all the info, very helpfull

Yeah, its not a perfect system. The parallel guides making narrow stock much easier because the guides really hold the stock in place.
[attachthumb=#]

In this pic the stock isn't narrow but check out how the guides sandwich the stock. This prevents it form moving during the cut.

 

[ForumMFG]

Do the parallel guides have any clamping action?

 

[Brice Burrell]

Do you mean to the work piece? The guides only clamp to the rail, the work piece isn't clamped to the guides.