festool circular saw ?

[rhett]

Does anyone here have festool's plunge cut saw? I am curious as to how narrow a piece a stock can be ripped. The application would be for solid wood filler stiles on factory cabinets. Say ripping a 4" wide stick down to 2.5". I need an occasional jobsite saw and would rather buy something I can use for my custom work instead of having two tablesaws.

 

[WoodWrangler]

Check with Tarhead (Mark) ... he's got one (and I want it!)

 

[Tarhead]

Rhett,

Yep, I'm a very happy owner of the Festool TS55EQ and some of the saw guides. I use this along with an MFT1080 as my chop/miter/crosscut station. I breakdown sheetgoods with the long guides, a sawhorse and my truck tailgate. Most of the ripping I do with this system is for getting a straight edge on rough lumber. I have made some very narrow strips (1/8"X1/8") for repairing some window sash and it worked very well.

The guide has a cutting side with a thin rubber anti chipout strip that the blade butts against as the saw travels and a non-cutting side (the left as the saw travels) which supports the saw base. As far as ripping narrow stock you would need to clamp the guide to a wide piece of stock (I use a piece of plywood close to the thickness of the stock) leaving the 2.5" width open under the cutting side of the guide. Then slide the 4" piece of stock you need to cut under the guide, butting it up against the plywood under the guide and cut. The sawn piece under the guide is your filler piece. This is setup to do as many filler strips as you need.

If I were only doing a few narrow strips I would mark my width on each end of the stock, support the left side of the guide with a few pieces of scrap close in thickness to my stock, place the rubber cutting edge of the guide on the marks and cut. Very quick, acurate and safe (no kickback, blade covered).

www.festoolownersgroup.com is an excellent resource for info on Festool.

Mark

 

[rhett]

That is exactly what I wanted to hear. Thanks for the info Tarhead.