TS55: Parallel rip cut jig

[nikev]

Hi all,

After getting a lot of useful advice from these boards, I thought it was finally time to give back.

I hame up with a solution to a question that I and many others have asked on this board, namely, how to make repeatable parallel  cuts with the TS55 saw, especially when working with narrow stock. I have used this to cut a bunch of 1/4 inch pieces with pretty much perfect accuracy, a job I previously thought could only be done with a table saw.

The only material you need is a piece of scrap plywood, slightly longer and wider than your guide rail.

Step 1: cut one long edge of the plywood piece so that the long edge is straight. Don't worry about whether or not the short edges are square, or whether the two long edges are parallel.

Step 2: Put your guide rail lengthways on the piece you just cut, and align the back edge of the rail with the straight edge you just cut. Use your finger to confirm that the edge of the rail is precisely aligned with the plywood edge.

Step 3: Once you have the rail and the plywood aligned, clamp the rail in place, and cut the piece of plywood. You should end up with a piece of plywood the exact width of the guide rail, plus whatever offset your particular saw happens to have. This piece works like a fence.

Step 4: Now we get to the fun bit. Suppose you want to cut strips 5mm wide. What you do is clamp the rail to the plywood fence you cut, with the back of the rail 5mm in from the edge. Use a sliding square, or any other adjustable square you like, to make sure that the rail is parallel to the edge of the fence. Then clamp the rail in place. When you are done, the front of the rail should overhang the plywood by 5mm (minus your saw offset, but you don't need to worry about this).

Step 5: To cut the wood, just butt your stock against the plywood piece, clamp everything down, and cut away. The piece that comes out will be exactly 5mm wide. Repeat as often as needed!

The neat thing about the system is that the relative positions of the plywood fence and the guide rail never change, so as long you snug the stock up to the fence, the cut will be exactly the same every time. And since the fence is cut with the saw offset factored in, it's easy to set the desired cutting width without worrying about offsets.

-- Nike

 

[Warrior]

Nike,

Good post. I have used this technique many times. The only fault I have with it is that the stock to be cut must be the same thickness as the fence stock. If not, you either have to shim up the stock or the fence. At that point the efficiency is lost and you might as well just go to the table saw.

Eiji

 

[poto]

With the waste side clamped, is there any risk of the cutoff binding or kicking back? It seems that it would be difficult to clamp the cutoff part under the rail. Or do you use the rail to secure the part that you're cutting, and leave the waste free?

I've done something a bit similar with a jig, and found that the Lee Valley Wonderdogs are great for maintaining the lateral alignment of your board: just snug them up against the side of the parallel board on the back side of the guide rail. They're also great for making small lateral adjustments to the parallel board.

 

[mhch]

  Great idea. Can use several spacesr, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, etc .. thick, plus shims if needed
  to work with different thicknesses.

  Steve (Qwas) 's parallelogram idea inhttp://festoolownersgroup.com/index.php?topic=2757.0
  can be combined with this, parallelogram on top of spacer and workpiece, left arm
  of parallelogram and spacer aligned against another fence on left side of MFT,

 

[Michael Kellough]

A good technique well explained Nike. The holy grail of parallel rips is a jig that can be set without tools and is not dependent on matching the thickness of the wood you're cutting.

You might be interested in adding a couple of things to your jig.

1. Add a taller fence/wall to the back edge of your plywood platform (the one the guide rail sits on) so that when the guide rail is simply pushed up against that wall the kerf is at 0.0.

2. Now add gauge blocks between the wall and the guide rail and you can rip standard sized pieces without measuring.

3. A modification of 1. Put a couple of gaps in the fence/wall so the rule of the combination square can fit through the wall. Make the gap big enough for the head to butt against the plywood platform and you won't have to compensate for the thickness of the wall.

Your jig is simple to make so the jig-thickness/stock-thickness issue could be simply addressed by making versions in all the standard thicknesses you normally work with. As long as you can securely clamp the work piece a taller jig will be better than a lower jig if the size doesn't match.

 

[nikev]

Thanks for all the responses and questions. I'm glad somebody finds this useful. I personally find that table saws give me the creeps and I don't have space to set one up permanently (I am a hobbyist working at home, without a dedicated shop) so this technique has been a real help to me.

To address some of the issues raised:

i) It's true that one would ideally want the fence to be exactly as thick as the piece being cut. I have fences in different standard thicknesses, so I can usually find something close enough. If I can't find something very close, there are a nomber of things one can do:

a) use a taller fence and clamp the workpiece carefully.
b) It helps to adjust the green plastic splinter guard so that it holds the work piece down.
c) I have also used the push stick from a table saw to manually hold the workpiece in place if clearance for clamping is short.
d) if you are using a tall fence, there is sometimes clearance enough to get a clamp under the rail.
e) Strong double sided or anti-slip tape on the workpiece to hold it against the work table, or the rail.

In short, the system is not perfect, but works fine in practice.

ii) About kickback -- I guess this may happen with narrow pieces, but it can be prevented easily enough. I just take a scrap piece of wood and clamp in place at the end of the workpiece to act as an end block, so the piece under the rail can't move in the direction parallel to the rail. Using a push stick helps too.

iii) I like Michael K's ideas for improving the fence with a back wall, and will probably do this!

iv) One thing I learned from doing this is that the rubber splinter guard on the rail which is supposed to be a precise indicator of the saw offset/kerf opening doesn't actually work so well. It seems to me that no matter how careful I try to be, the splinter guard ends up damaged, and doesn't indicate the correct location of the kerf. Is this a common issue, or am I making a mistake in the way I'm using the saw?

-- Nike

 

[mhch]

the rubber splinter guard on the rail which is supposed to be a precise indicator of the saw offset/kerf opening doesn't actually work so well. It seems to me that no matter how careful I try to be, the splinter guard ends up damaged, and doesn't indicate the correct location of the kerf. Is this a common issue, or am I making a mistake in the way I'm using the saw?

I experienced that too, so whenever I want an accurate cut, I use a ruler stick
based approach to set the workpiece left edge at a measured distance
from the left side of the blade teeth, as illustrated in Qwas thread on
guide rail positionning

 

[nikev]

the rubber splinter guard on the rail which is supposed to be a precise indicator of the saw offset/kerf opening doesn't actually work so well. It seems to me that no matter how careful I try to be, the splinter guard ends up damaged, and doesn't indicate the correct location of the kerf. Is this a common issue, or am I making a mistake in the way I'm using the saw?

I experienced that too, so whenever I want an accurate cut, I use a ruler stick
based approach to set the workpiece left edge at a measured distance
from the left side of the blade teeth, as illustrated in Qwas thread on
guide rail positionning

Sorry, which is the Qwas thread? I am not familiar with it.

 

[mhch]

http://festoolownersgroup.com/index.php?topic=2757.0

 

[Michael Kellough]

iv) One thing I learned from doing this is that the rubber splinter guard on the rail which is supposed to be a precise indicator of the saw offset/kerf opening doesn't actually work so well. It seems to me that no matter how careful I try to be, the splinter guard ends up damaged, and doesn't indicate the correct location of the kerf. Is this a common issue, or am I making a mistake in the way I'm using the saw?

-- Nike

You've included a lot of good points and practices.

A stop block at the end of the work piece also reduces dust escaping when the saws exits.

I often use tape to secure narrow stock and just saw through it. When ripping a very narrow piece of stock I tape it to a wider piece of equal thickness and clamp, weight, or tape down the wider piece (unless it is heavy enough to stay still). I keep old sash weights wrapped in shrink wrap around to help hold stuff down.

iv. Normal use will erode the rubber strip. The fine tooth blade does the least damage. The Panther blade will wreck it in one pass. For efficient nonparallel cuts you need that rubber strip in good condition so you just have to get used to moving it over when it's too worn. A heat gun helps in getting it unstuck. As soon as you get it moved out give it some more heat to reactrivate the adhesive and clamp a strip of wood to the rubber side. PSA adhesive is pressure sensitive.

 

[nickao]

the rubber splinter guard on the rail which is supposed to be a precise indicator of the saw offset/kerf opening doesn't actually work so well. It seems to me that no matter how careful I try to be, the splinter guard ends up damaged, and doesn't indicate the correct location of the kerf. Is this a common issue, or am I making a mistake in the way I'm using the saw?

I experienced that too, so whenever I want an accurate cut, I use a ruler stick
based approach to set the workpiece left edge at a measured distance
from the left side of the blade teeth, as illustrated in Qwas thread on
guide rail positionning

Sorry, which is the Qwas thread? I am not familiar with it.

When I am using the guide rail on the mft I line up the line I want to cut with the kerf in the mft top, not with the rubber strip. Even if you have an existing kerf just take the time to make sure the blade sets right in the existing kerf and that the blade stays in the kerf through out the length of the table.

I usually line up using the left edge of the kerf itself as my guide. But after a lot of cutting I got a feel for  the system even if using the rubber strip. It became more a guide than an exact cut point, but I still could get acurate cuts knowing it was off.

My main issue with the Festool guide rails is just what you bring up and that the rubber strips are not easily replaceable. There are other systems out there that do this one function better, but I am not getting into that.

Nickao

 

[John Stevens]

I didn't invent this--a chap from Bermuda, I forget his name right now  :-[  posted this on the old FOG.  It's basically the same idea, but the wood is connected to the guide rail by a hinge, so after you cut one piece, you lift up the guide rail and go.  The hinge is mounted to the board via a slot so it can be slid inward or outward as desired.  The other chap's pics were posted on the old forum.  These are mine.

Regards,

John

P.S. Many thanks to Scott for reminding me how to "export" the photos from iPhoto.

 

[nickao]

I didn't invent this--a chap from Bermuda, I forget his name right now  :-[  posted this on the old FOG.  It's basically the same idea, but the wood is connected to the guide rail by a hinge, so after you cut one piece, you lift up the guide rail and go.  The hinge is mounted to the board via a slot so it can be slid inward or outward as desired.  The other chap's pics were posted on the old forum.  These are mine.

Regards,

John

P.S.  Sorry about the lack of pics, but I switched from a PC to an Apple about eight months ago, and for the life of me I can't figure out how to work the software on the mac.  With the PC it's extremely obvious how to make a copy of a pic, resize it to make it suitable to post on an internet forum, then post it.  With iPhoto (the proprietary software bundled with Apple computers), the menus and indexes are so inscrutable that I have to re-learn the process every time I try to post a pic.  As you can guess, it's a long, tedious process, and that means I don't post pics often, so I never end up memorizing the new procedure.  Catch 22!  Sorry for the rant, but it's way past my bedtime and I'm cranky (well, crankier than usual).  If I figure it out in the next few days I'll try to post the pics.  Until then, I hope you can get the idea from the short description above.

John, I am interested in seeing  that. Please post or if someone else has them can they post the pictures?

Nickao

 

[Qwas]

P.S.  Sorry about the lack of pics, but I switched from a PC to an Apple about eight months ago, and for the life of me I can't figure out how to work the software on the mac.  With the PC it's extremely obvious how to make a copy of a pic, resize it to make it suitable to post on an internet forum, then post it.  With iPhoto (the proprietary software bundled with Apple computers), the menus and indexes are so inscrutable that I have to re-learn the process every time I try to post a pic.  As you can guess, it's a long, tedious process, and that means I don't post pics often, so I never end up memorizing the new procedure.  Catch 22!  Sorry for the rant, but it's way past my bedtime and I'm cranky (well, crankier than usual).  If I figure it out in the next few days I'll try to post the pics.  Until then, I hope you can get the idea from the short description above.

John, see if you have GraphicConverter in your application or utility folder. If not, search for it on the internet and download it. It is shareware and you can use it until you decide you like it. Works great for resizing and cropping. I just switched from a G4 Mac to an Intel Mac and discovered my programs won't work. Someone on the FOG recommended GraphicConverter and I have been happy with it. You can set up iPhoto so when you double click a picture it will automatically open GraphicConverter with the picture you double clicked on.

 

[Scott W.]

..... With iPhoto (the proprietary software bundled with Apple computers), the menus and indexes are so inscrutable that I have to re-learn the process every time I try to post a pic. 

Hi John,

In iPhoto select file then export You'll get it from there.

Scott W.

 

[Qwas]

Hi John,

In iPhoto select file then export You'll get it from there.

Scott W.

I just tried it and works great. I learned something new today!

Thanks Scott.

 

[Dave Ronyak]

Hi all,

After getting a lot of useful advice from these boards, I thought it was finally time to give back.

I hame up with a solution to a question that I and many others have asked on this board, namely, how to make repeatable parallel  cuts with the TS55 saw, especially when working with narrow stock. I have used this to cut a bunch of 1/4 inch pieces with pretty much perfect accuracy, a job I previously thought could only be done with a table saw.

The only material you need is a piece of scrap plywood, slightly longer and wider than your guide rail.

Step 1: cut one long edge of the plywood piece so that the long edge is straight. Don't worry about whether or not the short edges are square, or whether the two long edges are parallel.

Step 2: Put your guide rail lengthways on the piece you just cut, and align the back edge of the rail with the straight edge you just cut. Use your finger to confirm that the edge of the rail is precisely aligned with the plywood edge.

Step 3: Once you have the rail and the plywood aligned, clamp the rail in place, and cut the piece of plywood. You should end up with a piece of plywood the exact width of the guide rail, plus whatever offset your particular saw happens to have. This piece works like a fence.

Step 4: Now we get to the fun bit. Suppose you want to cut strips 5mm wide. What you do is clamp the rail to the plywood fence you cut, with the back of the rail 5mm in from the edge. Use a sliding square, or any other adjustable square you like, to make sure that the rail is parallel to the edge of the fence. Then clamp the rail in place. When you are done, the front of the rail should overhang the plywood by 5mm (minus your saw offset, but you don't need to worry about this).

Step 5: To cut the wood, just butt your stock against the plywood piece, clamp everything down, and cut away. The piece that comes out will be exactly 5mm wide. Repeat as often as needed!

The neat thing about the system is that the relative positions of the plywood fence and the guide rail never change, so as long you snug the stock up to the fence, the cut will be exactly the same every time. And since the fence is cut with the saw offset factored in, it's easy to set the desired cutting width without worrying about offsets.

-- Nike

Nike,

Thanks for a great idea and your well-written description.  If you would add a ledger strip to the back edge, e.g. of 1" or more thick stock, then you could place shims corresponding the the thickness of the strips you want to rip between the back edge of the Guide Rail and that added ledger strip.  That would make precise setup very easy and quick.  For example, if you wanted to make strips 5mm in thickness, you could use a pair small dominos as shims.  Shims could be made from scraps of any strip that you have cut in case you need more.  Shims made from scraps of plastic laminate could be stacked to create a variety of thicknesses of ripped strips.

Dave R.

 

[John Stevens]

If you would add a ledger strip to the back edge, e.g. of 1" or more thick stock, then you could place shims corresponding the the thickness of the strips you want to rip between the back edge of the Guide Rail and that added ledger strip.

Dave, that's a great idea, thanks a million for sharing it here!  I actually have a few jigs like that, but they're only about three inches wide each.  I use them two at a time for ease in measuring from the cut line when using the guide rail without the MFT, like when you want to make a precise cut in a sheet of expensive ply.  I would never have thought of using them like you described, yet I think it would actually be better to use two smaller things than one long one because smaller ones are easier to clear of the crumbs of sawdust that inevitably accumulate while making multiple cuts, and you'll never have to worry about them bowing or warping over time.

It's very easy to make these.  Just get a piece of ply or MDF that is about 3" wide and somewhat longer than the width of your guide rail, and put two nails, screws, dowels, dominos, whatever, at the back edge.  Then place the piece under your guide rail with the nails (or whatever) registered against the back of the rail and make the cut.  Repeat for the second one.

I hope the pics are clear enough so I don't need to explain much.  The first is shows the jigs from the top looking down.  The second shows one in place under the guide rail.  The last shows the jigs in place under the guide rail with a strip of MDF in place as if to make multiple rips of that width, but it's a little confusing because I have t-slots in my MFT, and one of them just happens to be on the left-most edge of the back of the jig.  I should have used a piece of wood that contrasted with the top of the MFT instead of using an identical piece of MDF.

Regards,

John

 

[Qwas]

Thanks John. With your description, the last picture makes sense.

I like that idea. I'm going to have to make some this week!

 

[mikeneron]

I actually have a few jigs like that, but they're only about three inches wide each.  I use them two at a time for ease in measuring from the cut line when using the guide rail without the MFT, like when you want to make a precise cut in a sheet of expensive ply.  I would never have thought of using them like you described, yet I think it would actually be better to use two smaller things than one long one because smaller ones are easier to clear of the crumbs of sawdust that inevitably accumulate while making multiple cuts, and you'll never have to worry about them bowing or warping over time.

It's very easy to make these.  Just get a piece of ply or MDF that is about 3" wide and somewhat longer than the width of your guide rail, and put two nails, screws, dowels, dominos, whatever, at the back edge.  Then place the piece under your guide rail with the nails (or whatever) registered against the back of the rail and make the cut.  Repeat for the second one.

I hope the pics are clear enough so I don't need to explain much.  The first is shows the jigs from the top looking down.  The second shows one in place under the guide rail.  The last shows the jigs in place under the guide rail with a strip of MDF in place as if to make multiple rips of that width, but it's a little confusing because I have t-slots in my MFT, and one of them just happens to be on the left-most edge of the back of the jig.  I should have used a piece of wood that contrasted with the top of the MFT instead of using an identical piece of MDF.

Regards,

John

I know this thread is a couple years old now, but this is the simplest method I have found for making repetitive cuts.  Yes, you would need to make a set of these for different stock sizes, but I think for most 3/4" will do just fine.  When I was playing around with mine, the one thing needed for this to work is to have something straight and solid in place for them to butt up against.  Otherwise, they can move around and cause your work piece to not be right up against them.  I just used a thin strip of plywood that I cut a clean edge on and clamped this down to my table.

Once you have a piece cut to the width you want, then you use that as your template and make cut after cut after cut...very fast and very accurate.