If you want to cut a short piece of wood say 10mm long on your MFT table how do you do it. If the board is registered against the guide rail the 10 mm piece will be cut on the right side of the rail. The piece will be short by the thickness of the saws kerf. You can't slide the board in from the right side of the guide rail because there is no fence to register from. It seems all short cuts must be made with a calculation of board length desired +saw kerf width to yield the proper length. Is this right or am I missing something. I am getting old
Use of Mft table for short cut offs
- Thread starter jfr
- Start date
mouppe
Member
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2010
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- 3,036
You're right.
There are a couple of ways to overcome the problem. For one-off cuts, I would get close with a tracksaw and then finish with a hand plane. For repeated cuts, I would clamp a stop block parallel to the guide rail that leaves a 10mm cut. it may take a couple of test passes to get the setup right but then you would have repeatability. Just be careful to allow the offcut to release safely at the end of the cut.
There are a couple of ways to overcome the problem. For one-off cuts, I would get close with a tracksaw and then finish with a hand plane. For repeated cuts, I would clamp a stop block parallel to the guide rail that leaves a 10mm cut. it may take a couple of test passes to get the setup right but then you would have repeatability. Just be careful to allow the offcut to release safely at the end of the cut.
For many (probably the majority) of cuts you can have the wanted piece under the guide rail allowing a normal exact measurement. For those other occassions then add the blade kerf to your measurement or follow Richard's advice.
Peter
Peter
Make yourself a spacer that exactly fits in the kerf of the blade you're using.
Do a preliminary postitioning of your workpiece to be 10mm past the cut line and place the spacer on the end; clamp a stop up against the spacer; remove the spacer and slide the workpiece up against the stop.
Save the spacer. [wink]
Do a preliminary postitioning of your workpiece to be 10mm past the cut line and place the spacer on the end; clamp a stop up against the spacer; remove the spacer and slide the workpiece up against the stop.
Save the spacer. [wink]
PaulMarcel
Member
I made an offcut fence with a tape; calibrate it once, drop a stop on it so I don't need to recalibrate, and it is quick to pop on and off the MFT table.
This is the blog article that explains how to make it; it assumes you have an MFT-1080 and did the fence modifications I showed in a video: http://halfinchshy.blogspot.com/2010/08/offcut-fence-for-mft-1080-wohoo.html
But the idea is easily done on unmodified tables (1080 or /3). This article shows how I would have accomplished the same thing on one of those tables: http://www.halfinchshy.com/2010/08/offcut-fence-for-mft-1080-wohoo-part.html
Finding a nice adhesive rule for the fence is getting trickier all the time, but once you find a left-to-right 1/2" wide adhesive rule to stick to your spare fence, you'll use this a lot especially for narrow stock.
Sorry the photos were a bit dark in the blog articles. I still know nothing about photography.
This is the blog article that explains how to make it; it assumes you have an MFT-1080 and did the fence modifications I showed in a video: http://halfinchshy.blogspot.com/2010/08/offcut-fence-for-mft-1080-wohoo.html
But the idea is easily done on unmodified tables (1080 or /3). This article shows how I would have accomplished the same thing on one of those tables: http://www.halfinchshy.com/2010/08/offcut-fence-for-mft-1080-wohoo-part.html
Finding a nice adhesive rule for the fence is getting trickier all the time, but once you find a left-to-right 1/2" wide adhesive rule to stick to your spare fence, you'll use this a lot especially for narrow stock.
Sorry the photos were a bit dark in the blog articles. I still know nothing about photography.
Here is a thread that might also be relavent. Check out the last few images in the first post in particular.
http://festoolownersgroup.com/festool-jigs-tool-enhancements/did-you-get-a-mft3-or-a-dust-deputy-for-christmas/
Peter
http://festoolownersgroup.com/festool-jigs-tool-enhancements/did-you-get-a-mft3-or-a-dust-deputy-for-christmas/
Peter
