best thing for large sheets of melamine

[beech1948]

That should have said , I get them cut into ......


The festoon kit with only 1m rail and table is over 1300. Whereas a top of the range used machine might only be 900 ish with a scoring blade ? I just haven't ever seen a track saw in action let alone what it's capable of.

For example. The longest I need to cut would be 6ft and can't see how that table can really cope with that size cut. Let along keep accuracy over the distance

I have a Felder CF730 pro with a 3.5m sliding table. I would not under any circumstances try to cut a 9x6 sheet of MFC on it. Its dangerous to you, its liable to sap your strength, patience and tolerance of poor accuracy. It will be too slow, awkward and dangerous ( yes 2x dangerous).

You have some choices. These are:-

1) make your own track saw.....I've done this and it works well....95% as good as a festool. See this Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtlxOQrXhEo

2) Buy a cheaper track saw...Dewalt, Makita, Sheppach...again 90% of Festool performance

3) Buy a Festool + tracks for about £500 or less

4) For this job forget the tablesaw.

Its a trade off of excellent high cost Festool against cheaper workmanlike tools. Bling or brass.

 

[beech1948]

What I forgot to say was also split your problem into parts.

Part 1......Above message shows hardware options

Part 2......Choose a blade which is eminently suitable to MFC and is also thin kerf as I have found this helps

Part 3......If you get a bit of split out after the cuts then consider cutting a bit oversize and cut this down on a table saw to exact size using an MFC blade which is new and sharp and has minimal projection above the MFC surface

 

[Marcjwebb]

so with all the options for track saws, are there any recomendations ( im guessing festool but they want 130 just for some guide rails, bit much i must say ) i do however like the mft3 but would need to rip down to 610 wide and 457 wide then rip lengths to say 2ft, 3ft, 4ft, 5ft and 6ft

 

[HOJ]

Have you tried Ipswich Plastics, http://www.ipswichplastics.co.uk/home

I give them my cutting list, they optimise, give me a price, cut, edge, deliver, all done.

 

[chippy1970]

I've got the ts55r before that I had the old model years.

I wouldn't bother with the mft you can easily knock up a cheaper and bigger bench with dog holes like I did.

Then just use bench dogs available on eBay to set up for cutting your panels square.

The rails may sound expensive but if you shop around you can get them cheaper. I sure I've seen the 1400 ones for less than £50 recently.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

 

[petermillard]

These guys will do a full size 8x4 MFT top for ~£100 delivered. Set of bench and rail dogs an you're all set. And a saw, obviously

As mentioned earlier in the thread, the Festool TS55 can be had with one rail for about ~£360. The DeWalt's a bit cheaper, the Makita a bit cheaper again, but we're only talking a few quid here and there. As Chippy says, shop around and you can get better prices on the rails and accessories; FWIW I don't know anyone who's bought the Festool and regretted it.

HTH Pete

 

[Marcjwebb]

What's the Ipswich plastics for? Sorry I meant the parallel guides as supposed tonthe rails. But yeah. 50 ish is what I see for the 1400

 

[Eric The Viking]

I'm sure Pete is right about the Festool. FWIW, I've just cut 104 linear feet of thin MDF sheet using the 3m Makita rail that arrived yesterday. No MFT, slightly fiddly to set up a lengthwise cut on 8ft sheet, but I've got it down pat now, and it's really quick and seems pretty true.

I finished late, so turned off the room light and put a red laser down the rubber strip. As far as I can see, it's straight to better than 0.3mm over the 3m length - it is very hard to check though.

Mind you, Festool are 'very committed' to precision. I'm sure their rails are straighter, after all they are a LOT more expensive.

Seriously, either would be very good, at a guess. As I said, the Makita is made in the UK...

 

[Marcjwebb]

The main part of the mft I really like is the back fence for cross cuts with the rail that is hinged.

 

[Benchwayze]

Agreed Chippy. Also it's possible to buy the replacement MFT tops for less than £60.00. It shouldn't be too difficult to make a bench to support the top. The rails around the sides of the MFT are really only there to take the fence and protractor that comes with the MFT. So, with a bit of imagination, bench dogs will allow you to do most things, for which you would use the protractor and fence.

 

[petermillard]

The main part of the mft I really like is the back fence for cross cuts with the rail that is hinged.

Yes, it's great. Unfortunately, even with the rail mounted on the short side of an MFT you won't cut more than a hair over 1100 mm; bit of brain fade from Festool there, sadly. You can buy longer aluminium profile to make a bigger MFT but it all depends how much time/effort/expense you want to go to really <shrug>

 

[Marcjwebb]

That's prob more than i would need to be fair. Common stuff I would be cutting is 18" and 2ft. The occasional 3 at a push

 

[Eric The Viking]

Those chaps on eBay that Peter mentioned do various sizes.

I'm seriously tempted. Might I ask the MFT users out there: there's a version they do with slots round the edge. Is that for mounting a fence or other accessories, or simply to act as carrying handles?

 

[stuartpaul]

I don't have a track saw but I do have a vintage Wadkin dimension saw which I purchased and restored for under your stated budget. I can't offer you a true comparison but I personally don't understand how one can get the same levels of accuracy, repeatability and capacity with the hand held device as you can with the stationary lump of iron ........ (snip)

I didn't either, - then I got one!

I have a beefy table saw with sliding table but with a large job converting 8 x 4 sheets the table saw would frankly have been dangerous and heaven knows what state my back would have been in afterwards.

With the investment of a couple of hours making a set of Mr Maskery's jigs I couldn't quite believe the accuracy achievable with a Festool tracksaw. I started off allowing a couple of mm to trim to final size on the table saw but soon abandoned this in favour of going straight to final size.

And then as you acknowledge the added benefit of not having to hump sheet goods around a tight workshop. The Festool hasn't paid for itself but I'm a real convert and when I have to down size (unfortunately not too far away) the MFT will replace the table saw.

 

[Roughcut]

The main part of the mft I really like is the back fence for cross cuts with the rail that is hinged.

Yes that is one of the features that pushed me toward purchasing an MFT3.
However since using it I have found that I never really use the angle protractor that is included, but for repetitive cross cuts within the size of the table you can slide the stop flag on to the back fence so that when everything is set up and square you can knock out the cuts without having to measure and mark up.

 

[petermillard]

Those chaps on eBay that Peter mentioned do various sizes.

I'm seriously tempted. Might I ask the MFT users out there: there's a version they do with slots round the edge. Is that for mounting a fence or other accessories, or simply to act as carrying handles?

I do have a Festool MFT though I don't own one of the eBay tops that I linked to, but having said that, my understanding is that the tops with slots are both for ease of carrying, and for clamping using clamps that wouldn't fit through the 20mm holes.

Cheers, Pete

 

[James-1986]

Personally I think big sliding panel saws are pants, they are mediocre at everything they do, I used one for years and would never buy one for myself. Smaller table saws with a crosscutting table are useful though. Perhaps keep the saw you have and buy yourself a wall saw to break the sheets down. Easy to load the sheets into the machine, repeat accuracy, scoring facility and they take up far less space than a panel saw.

If you've got deep pockets a beam saw is the ultimate weapon for dealing with big sheets.

 

[HOJ]

What's the Ipswich plastics for?

My point was, if you are getting the sheets knocked down to rough size, why not get them cut to exact size in the first place?
" work smarter not harder".

 

[Benchwayze]

What's the Ipswich plastics for?

My point was, if you are getting the sheets knocked down to rough size, why not get them cut to exact size in the first place?
" work smarter not harder".

Because it's not unknown for specified sizes to be out by a few mm or 1/8ths!. I suppose I'd rather make my own mistakes; but mainly it's to save time by not having to return materials, for a re-cut.


Cheers

 

[Marcjwebb]

When getting cuts from timber merchant. The edges have the worst tear out I have ever seen. So I usually get an inch or to extra for trimming