TSO MFT Fence: Perfectly Flawed

[sansbury]

I recently purchased one of TSO's MFT fence setups, in the 900mm length. This came shortly after finishing my first project using their parallel guide system, which fulfilled almost every* desire I could have had and got me really hopped up on the idea of replacing measurements on the material with settings on the tool.

I set the fence up calibrating the measurements using the English scale, and did some test checks, and found something that didn't seem right: If I calibrated it so that 12" on the scale gave me 12 on the material, then switched to 300mm, the resulting cut would be about 1mm off. I re-calibrated it using the Metric scale, and this time the English scale was off by about the same amount. The scales seemed individually accurate, but not quite aligned with each other.

I took some pictures and sent a message to TSO support, and they replied (very quickly!) that this was a known issue, that I should stick to one scale or the other, and that I have 60 days to return for a refund if I wanted. They also said they'd share my feedback with the engineering team. At this point I am hoping that somebody in TSO will look at this and say "manufacturing defect," and get me a fence where the scales line up with each other. I really like the idea of it, and in all other respects it feels like the quality I've come to expect from TSO. As it is, I am moving towards favoring metric for all my precision wood working, so I might be able to live with it as it is.

But I am struggling to see this as anything other than a defect or a very, very questionable cost-saving choice. I'd assume that both scales are engraved on a CNC laser in a single setup, but maybe there's two setups that create the opportunity for error.

The reason why I spend the premium for Festool is that their products waste far less of my time because I don't need to work around them. The TSO parallel guides lived up to and even exceeded this standard as they didn't force me to choose one measurement system. By that measure this fence is close, but 1mm short of a cigar. I will be interested to see if they decide this is a defective product or if this is as good as it gets.

* I say "almost" because I don't care for how they handle thin rips, but I don't really consider that a TSO shortcoming. Doing 4" rips on a 6" board using an 8" track just isn't ideal. I am tempted to fab up a reversible stop that could be used backwards, i.e. to slice 4" off the end of a large sheet of plywood. Maybe a winter project for the machine shop when I am a little less busy...

 

[Dr. P. Venkman]

But I am struggling to see this as anything other than a defect or a very, very questionable cost-saving choice.

I think that’s a defect. They’re clearly selling it as a dual scale fence, and the scales are slightly out of alignment - that makes it defective. That they said it’s a known issue seems to indicate they agree.

I guess the response to such a defect will vary by company. It sounds like they’ve taken the position that people should be satisfied with recalibrating every time they need to switch scales. That feels like the cost-saving part to me.

My guess: they intend for the next run of these fences to be accurate, but plan to sell however many defective ones they’ve already got. Some people would consider that completely unacceptable, and I would guess some wouldn’t be bothered at all.

I don’t find it wholly unreasonable for a small company to try to make some use of a slightly defective batch of product (it’s not like they’re bent or don’t work at all), but selling them at full price without mentioning the defect feels somewhat deceptive.

It might be kind of a hard defect to communicate clearly in a product description, but I think a better approach would have been to sell them as seconds and have a “We screwed up!” sale: “25% off for a dual scale fence that functions at 100% if you only need one scale at a time!”

 

[Cheese]

Another thing to consider is that I'm sure there are a lot of TSO customers that don't speak metric or don't speak imperial. It seems the FOG group tends to speak both languages but that's probably not the common case. So, throwing out good product is probably not a realistic alternative if it was a large production run. I'm sure TSO will correct the issue on the next production run as they are obviously aware of the situation.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

I see it as basically a non-issue. It is "dual scale", not simultaneous. If it had been offered as either, where you have to choose, some people would not be happy with that either.
Like @Cheese said, this is probably a fairly unique group. We have people who use one or the other, but how many use both?