MFT Top

[Marineboy]

Have done some work to expand my tiny workshop at the top of the house and get back into woodwork. Having just acquired a track saw I am smitten with all things Festool and I seriously coveted a MFT having seen the Peter Parfitt videos but was looking for a cheaper alternative. The top you can see is from CNC Design in Wrexham, £50 inc 6 beautifully made ally dogs and postage. My bench is an old metal desk. I have kept the two drawer units and replaced the top with ply and as it sags slightly in the middle I've had to pack out under the MFT and add a piece of MDF on the left to make a continuous bench top which is flat and more or less horizontal. I realise there is no space at the rear but I can live with that.

Now, where's that Festool website...

 

[Adam9453]

looks great and a steal at £50

 

[Marineboy]

Thanks Adam. Yes it is dead accurate, will be a piece of cake cutting right angles and 45 degrees with the Festool guide.

 

[Adam9453]

yeah its the beauty of CNC cut pieces, you can trust in their accuracy.
I plan on getting a super duper new MFT style top cut to replace the top of my table saw out feed table (as I also use it as an assembly table / glue up area / finishing area / work bench lol)

 

[LancsRick]

£50 you say, might have to investigate them for a top for my bench...

Nice cosy workshop by the way!

 

[Wizard9999]

The MFT template at £35 with guide bushes looks pretty good too.

Terry.

 

[Marineboy]

Yes LancsRick, cosy is the word. Warm in winter as it's at the top of the house and as you can see I've Celotexed the roof slope, but gets quite warm in summer. I took out the low stud wall which divided the room from the eave space which is now where I keep my wood.

 

[Wuffles]

Can you post a link for this seller please? I'd like to get some prices. Cheers.


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[wolfey]

Whilst laying in the bath last night looking at this on my iPad I took a look at that company and have some very interesting stuff on there!
Looking at their small vacuum hold down table made me wonder if it could be done on a larger scale (8x4) lol fitted to 150mm mains extraction system in the machine shop!!!! Could be handy for routing etc......

So..... 5 minutes programming with my coffee and a sheet of mr MDF at lunch whilst the cnc was down produced this...

Just need to wait for the vacuum gasket to arrive and cut out the extraction hole and we will see.

Not shore if it will be powerful enough but it's an experiment and could add more vacuum points maybe..

 

[Wuffles]

Seriously, am I just not seeing this company? Googled it but just found generic CNC companies in the area. Perhaps it's because I'm on a phone.


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[galleywood]

http://www.cncdesign.co.uk/index.html

 

[Adam9453]

wolfey, a trick we use with our vacuum tables is that if you find its not gripping enough, just put some extra boards down covering any unused space, this will effectively increase the vacuum being applied to your desired piece.

 

[Wuffles]

http://www.cncdesign.co.uk/index.html

That's the first one I looked at, just couldn't see the right info on the phone . Cheers for that.

 

[wolfey]

Thanks for the heads up Adam9453

Our main vacuum tables are zoned so we can direct the power as we wish.... Might be a bit much to add this feature to this MDF prototype!!!!! Lol

 

[Adam9453]

That is a nice feature but yes I suspect you might be right considering it's only an 8x4 size area.
I'm quite tempted to add dust extraction to the mft style table I'm going to build, I spend a fair amount of time vaccing the top clean. I guess I could add grooves to make it vacuum clamping too