TS55 REQ for Miter Saw Tasks?

[bantamug]

Hi, I'm looking to pick up a TS55 REQ primarily for breaking down sheet goods and quickly squaring up boards.  Can anybody tell me how they use it for "miter saw" tasks?

One job I often struggle do in my small shop is cross cutting sections from 8-12 foot lengths of 10-12 inch boards 4-8/4  boards. I don't own a miter saw (space concerns) and I end up either rough cutting with a jig saw and squaring up with my table saw (a bit wasteful) or dealing with the smaller sections right on the table saw with a sled.

So, questions: 1) do folks use the saw and track to cut sections of ~foot wide boards? How do you get the track square quickly (can you get some kind of edge guide?) 2) Is there a (reasonably safe) way to use the saw to cut molding? 3) How good can you get 45 degree bevels /miters from the system vs a table saw?

Thanks for your advice and sorry if this has been asked before!

 

[peter halle]

Welcome to the FOG!

Stick around.  I am sure that you will get lots of responses from members here of differing opinions and modes of operation.

Peter

 

[tdwilli1]

That's exactly what I did. I got the TS55 after I had a miter saw and purchased 2 MFT's and built a bench based off of them and then got rid of my miter saw! Haven't had any issues with this setup using it as a miter setup.

 

[bantamug]

Cool! Do you have and pictures of your setup? Can you describe how you set up a cross cut on a board?

 

[waho6o9]

The MFT3 has a built in 45 degree angle in their matrix.

I use rail dogs on the 45 and a fence for my material.

Bingo.

 

[grbmds]

Since spacing dogs in the MFT's holes along an angle already provide a perfect 45 degree angle, I use the dogs I had for the "fence" and cut along the guide rail which was squared previously. The result was very accurate miters for a picture frame.

 

[ear3]

If you don't want to get an MFT, you can still do a lot of this with some sort of sawhorse system, though you will find it more difficult to do the crosscutting of long boards unless you get the FS Rapid clamps, which clamp on the edge of the board, as opposed to the underside.  For clamping underneath you should also note that the Dewalt track clamps work with the Festool guide rail.  Your cuts will be as good as your scribe line, so maybe invest in a decent 12-24" square.  There is a Festool angle attachment for the guide rail (and some aftermarket ones as well), though I've heard mixed reviews of them (don't own one myself).  There are also the parallel guides (both Festools and other brands), but that's more for batch cutting on sheet goods, and for that price I would just go for the MFT.

Before I got the MFT, I was still confident in the squareness of my cuts, provided I was able to clamp the rail sufficiently well.  One trick I learned on the forum is to split my pencil mark with a razor blade, so you can slide the rail up right to the razor and thus be confident in the positioning.

Where the track saw really excels is in doing long bevel cuts.  This is always a nerve-racking operation on the table saw when the board is long, and it is super easy to get blade marks on the cut.  But with the guide rail it's really hard to mess up the cut.

Here's a threat about table saw vs. track saw:

http://festoolownersgroup.com/festool-tools-accessories/table-saw-rip-capacity-vs-festool-plunge/

Not sure what you mean by cutting moulding -- do you mean ripping narrower stock?

 

[bantamug]

Thanks, that's super helpful and I'll investigate these other clamping options.

By moulding I mean stuff like pre fabricated crown molding and trim (

 

[ear3]

I still use my Miter saw for this type of stuff.  These sorts of tricky, precise cuts are certainly possible with the track saw, but here's you would probably want to pair it up with an MFT.  Trying to balance the rail + saw on boards less than 4" board -- assuming you can clamp it, is a challenge.  You can add additional support for the rail with scrap pieces that are the exact thickness of the workpiece, that way the rail is not sagging on a bevel cut as you approach and leave the stock.

The other advantage of the MFT is that you can do a lot of guided routing on it as well, since the routers integrate with the guide rails.  You can also do guided routing without the MFT, but it starts to get tricky when you're dealing with stock narrower than the rail. 

 

[tdwilli1]

Here is my setup. To cut down a full sheet I just take off the guide and use either the long rail for full length rips or the LR32 rail for cross cuts on the sheet (a full sheet will fit on my table). After that I can put the guide back on and make smaller cross cuts to the size I need with the attached rail. I have put a measuring tape on the guide to use with the stop block and get my repeatable cuts.