Greeting and salutations

[Moe]

Hello to all

I'm looking for some advice on the right sort of tools to buy. To explain, i'm a sound engineer who is looking to move into speaker cabinet design. Although i have all the theoretical knowledge about the design i have little experience of the practicalities of construction. I must be able to cut materials such as marine grade plywood and aluminium extrusion very acuratley time after time. I have been looking recently at the FESTOOLS range of of power saws that come with a guide rail and MFT table, does anyone have experince of this range or similar?. Any advice in this area would be greatly appreciated.

thanx

Moe

 

[Scrit]

Hello Moe

Back in the late 1920s when radios were the "new big thing" manufacturers came up with a couple of machines to make cabinets from plywood - the dimension saw (a table saw with a sliding carriage and stops) and the pin router. (Alright the dim. saw was a slightly earlier beastie, but it was made accurate enough by ball bearings, a 1920s thing in Europe.) Fundamentally things haven't changed in 70 odd years - I think you still need a table saw with a sliding carraige for repeatability (and if you are going to build more than one or two at a time) and you also need router man enough the handle plywood - at least a 1.2in machine, and preferably an overhead pin router which can repeat cut-outs from a template. Even a lightweight design such as this:

make the job easier and more consistent and can be had on eBay for about the same as you'd pay for a new 3HP deWalt plunge router (i.e. £200). The pin router also allows you to groove-out for jointing, backs, etc.

As for the ally extrusion I'd suggest either a chop saw (preferably with an induction motor), or once again the table saw and carraige with appropriate blades. Ally extrusions are pretty tough on saws and can be bit haity to cut using a portable circular saw.

That's my two pennorth from a "trades" perspective..... although my experience of rail systems is mainly confined to the Boscj h and more recently the Mafell system.

Scrit

 

[WellsWood]

Hi Moe, and welcome.

I don't have the festool system, but there's afew on here that do, and are big fans if previous posts are anything to go by. Personally I would go for a small quality tablesaw with a sliding table for the kind of thing you are intending to make. Something like this or this would do nicely. As far as I can tell hand held circular saws with a guide rail system such as festool really come into their own when doing long cuts like ripping because you move the tool rather than the workpeice. This means you don't need as much space because there is no requirement for infeed and outfeed areas in front and behind the saw respectively. There are pros and cons of course whichever way you go Hang tight, mine won't be the only opinion, though whether you'll end up with a concensus remains to be seen.

Either way you will make a lot of sawdust so don't forget to budget for a dust extractor of some sort to go with it, this is especially important if you are going to use any man made boards like MDF, otherwise it's you that will be sucking it up - not good

Hope this helps
Mark

 

[ByronBlack]

I can definitly agree with the dust extraction point - this is a serious consideration and should be one of your main priorities. The festool is especially good for dust extraction, I didn't go for the festool matching extractor though, instead I bought the cheaper Trend T30 AF which fits directly onto the festool saw, and provided about a 95% extraction, there is very little dust during the whole process.

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Moe

Welcome to the forum.

I've got exactly the same setup as Byron and I would recommend it very highly. The dust extraction is excellent.

Cheers
Neil