Festool Rip Jig

A simple rip jig for my Festool TS 55 EQ circular saw and rail system. My first attempt at this was simply two pieces of plywood clamped together, the rail sat on the upper piece and I moved it to the appropriate place. The problem was that this made a kerf cut at different places in the lower piece, and I was dependent on the rubber edge of the rail to set my cut depth. This new jig solves both those problems.

One caveat: I have recently learned that not all Festool blades, even of the same type, have the same distance from rail edge to kerf. I have three of the standard general purpose blades, two which are dead on, and a third (newer one) which is just a hair (like a 64th of an inch or so) wider.

Play video at YouTube.

An overall view. There are two movable sections, the fence, which is "L" shaped and is clamped under those knobs. It moves in and out underneath the rail, and was cut so that the distance from that strip along the back to the front edge is exactly the depth of the rail, so I can set my thickness by using a spacer between that and the back of the rail.

Here are the component pieces. The base, with the threaded rod sticking up and one of the knobs which goes on the threads, the fence, with its slots for movement, and the rail, for comparative lengths

Same picture, from the other side

A detail picture of the edge of the rail, showing the clip to hold the rail in place, and how the pieces come together.

You can see that the fence assembly from the part under the rail to the strip along the back of the rail is exactly the width of the rail. As mentioned above, I built it wider than that and cut it to size with the saw

Here's the gap under the rail, obviously this is usually occupied by the stock being cut.

Not sure this is terribly interesting, but this shows the clamp I bent out of a strip of metal, with the rod I cut diagonally and slide into the hole to hold it in.

Here's the saw on the rail, you can see that the blade always cuts in the kerf, it's the fence that moves in and out

These two are just a simple sequence of the rail with the rail temporarily moved to expose the fence, and the rail in place without moving the fence.

And a demonstration of how the spacing works

Category:Festool Category:Woodworking