What happened to my rails?!

[weekendwarrior]

I only have a 1080/2 from my MFT and a 1900/2 from my TS75.  Just received two Festool Guide Rail Connectors, made one 8' cut, and gasped upon inspection of the rail joint!  [scared] [scared] [scared] [scared]

I am very concerned because now there are bumps on the top rail that my tools use and indentations inside the rail guides.  I did NOT cinch those set screws down; just enough so the guide rail connectors fully stopped wiggling.

Is this normal?  Do I have defective rails?  I baby my rails and was not expecting this to happen to my expensive guide rails.  [crying]

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[peter halle]

You might have overtightened the screws on the connectors which cased those marks.

Peter

 

[Brice Burrell]

You might have overtightened the screws on the connectors which cased those marks.

Peter

Might have. [blink]  I'd say he most certainly did. [tongue]

 

[RJNeal]

I did think you could torque those screws so much. Festool must of upgraded the screws a bit.
Some of my screws cam out...
Rick

 

[Shane Holland]

Festool uses slotted screws for the rail connectors on purpose to reduce the chances of overtightening.

Lucky, aluminum is a soft metal and I think you can probably fix the indentations.

Sorry this happening to your rails.  [unsure]

 

[Cheese]

I'm a big fan of Festool, but I think this rail joining connector is a major disconnect for them, and they really do need to address it.

I realize that they deferred to use a proper hex/Torx headed fastener and decided to use slotted head screws on the joiner rails so that, at least theoretically, the average joe wouldn't be able to apply enough force on the screw to deform the top section of the rail. This is a pretty weak end-around on this issue. Unfortunately, the average joe is still able to apply enough torque to the slotted set screw to deform the rails.
Just suck it up Festool, and come out with a new 2 piece rail joiner such as the one offered by Makita and move forward. And while you're moving forward, consider lengthening the rail connector to something longer than 12". Do the math, 6" of connector engagement on each side of the rail, doesn't necessarily yield good results.  [doh]

 

[Holmz]

6" on each side is enough for Other rail systems.
Assuming you had a piece of saw dust 0.006" you would still be at 0.012"/foot.

As one can easily spend more on rails than the saw it is bewildering that the market supports it.

 

[Birdhunter]

The bumps look fixable. Just a good piece of steel under the bump and some gentle taps on top of the bump with a small brass hammer should flatten the protrusions. I'd grind a tad off the end of each screw.

 

[Locks14]

It's a shame Festool don't make their saws to run on the Bosch/Mafell rails. Bosch/Mafell saws are able to run on both rail systems.  This way Festool users could use Bosch rails which join together in a much better fashion.

 

[Sparktrician]

You'll lessen the chance of that kind of damage to your rails by using the kind of screws in this thread.

 

[Darren1972]

I only have a 1080/2 from my MFT and a 1900/2 from my TS75.  Just received two Festool Guide Rail Connectors, made one 8' cut, and gasped upon inspection of the rail joint!  [scared] [scared] [scared] [scared]

I am very concerned because now there are bumps on the top rail that my tools use and indentations inside the rail guides.  I did NOT cinch those set screws down; just enough so the guide rail connectors fully stopped wiggling.

Is this normal?  Do I have defective rails?  I baby my rails and was not expecting this to happen to my expensive guide rails.  [crying]

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Looks like you have realy over tightened the screws i only just nip them up with a hand driver hardly even tight probaly only a tenth of a turn once they touch the rail

 

[Holmz]

Or maybe the rails are engineered to be over tightened?
It seems unlikely given the engineering that went into the connector system.

IMO- One would be barking mad to not consider a different saw and rail if they were starting from scratch and had no saw and no rails.

MFT3 / Bosch-rails / MT55

 

[Rick Christopherson]

It's a shame Festool don't make their saws to run on the Bosch/Mafell rails. Bosch/Mafell saws are able to run on both rail systems.  This way Festool users could use Bosch rails which join together in a much better fashion.

    Festool saws and rails predate Bosch, Mafell, Makita, DeWalt, and others. It was Bosch and Mafell that designed their rails deliberately to be one-way compatible, as did DeWalt.

EDIT> removed rude comment.

 

[abcd123]

It's a shame Festool don't make their saws to run on the Bosch/Mafell rails. Bosch/Mafell saws are able to run on both rail systems.  This way Festool users could use Bosch rails which join together in a much better fashion.

So, you are complaining that windshield wipers from MB S class are not compatible with your Fiat Punto?  : Do you think that people at MB or BMW will care about being compatible with Fiat parts?

 

[Darren1972]

It's a shame Festool don't make their saws to run on the Bosch/Mafell rails. Bosch/Mafell saws are able to run on both rail systems.  This way Festool users could use Bosch rails which join together in a much better fashion.

So, you are complaining that windshield wipers from MB S class are not compatible with your Fiat Punto?  : Do you think that people at MB or BMW will care about being compatible with Fiat parts?

well for a start bmw are overated and yes the wiper blades are compatible on most cars do u think there is a different blade for every car if so there would be 1000 s of wiper blade manafacturers where is bosch make 90% of them

 

[Kev]

Looks like this thread is heading south ...

[popcorn]

 

[sancho57]

Hmmmmmm I'd like some southern fried chicken right about now

 

[Kevin McConville]

The windshield wiper analogy has some merit - without dragging this into what cars people like and don't like consider this.

1. Manufacturer A invents windshield wipers supplies them with their cars.

2. Manufacturer B likes the idea of windshield wipers and copies the concept but makes a couple of changes so that only their windshield wipers fit on their cars, they then incorporate into their design the ability to fit on the inventors cars.

It would be unfair to conclude that the problem is Manufacturer A who invented the wiper blades is remiss in not modifying their invention to fit Manufacturer B's cars - the real situation is that over time Manufacturer B made sure that A would fit B and B would fit A and that's why we have common wiper blades. 

Getting back to the point - I'm sorry you had this happen, it does seem to be fairly uncommon.  my personal experience is I haven't had an issue like this with mine, I do agree with most that it's time Festool improved the rail joining system.  For a company that prides itself on precision and craftsmanship, driving screws against the inside of the rail is crude - surely a taper lock or cam lock system is in order.

 

[Rob Z]

I keep a #1 cabinet makers screwdriver with my guide rail connectors, and only use that to tighten them.  With the long shank on the screwdriver and the narrow tip, it is difficult to apply too much force on the screws .  That has worked for the ~6 years that I have been connecting guide rails, and so far none of them have been damaged.

 

[joiner1970]

Here we go again lol