New Woodpeckers Festool add on

[Maurice Ungaro]

Looks like it comes with a Festool price too!
http://www.woodpeck.com/mftsquare.html

[Rich Riddle]

I saw this yesterday at the Columbus Woodworking Show. It's one of those that I feel fall into the gimmick tool category. Unfortunately, many of Woodpeckers tools seem to fall in that category. Some are great, but many lack practical use.

[Maurice Ungaro]

Rich, my thoughts exactly.

[Wade Lippman]

I disagree! Getting my mft perfectly square was a pain. If I hadn't sold it, I would be all over this. Well, if it was maybe $50.

[Mark Carlson]

The easiest way of squaring an MFT fence is to use 20mm bench dogs in the holes. The rows and columns of holes are perfectly cnc machined to be 90 degrees. No need for a square. I think they're called qwas dogs and you'll find videos on how to use them.

[Frank Martin]

Exactly my thoughts. Many years ago I had an MFT and sold it because of unreliable alignment. Back then there were no dogs available, so setting it square was painful and required checking and adjusting often... Pretty much the only Festool that I bought and was not satisfied with its performance.

[Brian Kincaid]

I can see the use for this tool because of the way the Festool rail must go up and down for different stock thicknesses. It seems, though, that there are probably better solutions to the problem than a huge metal square. Especially since you could just draw the squaring lines on the table top using a 345 triangle and then use a 3" machine square to make sure you are on the mark. The dog holes are probably a fine solution too!

That said, if someone really wants an enormous metal square, then go for it

-Brian

[Chris Padilla]

The easiest way of squaring an MFT fence is to use 20mm bench dogs in the holes. The rows and columns of holes are perfectly cnc machined to be 90 degrees. No need for a square. I think they're called qwas dogs and you'll find videos on how to use them.

Yes. Qwas. I have a couple sets of these dogs and they make alignment a breeze...and they are was less money than Woodpeckers' product.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Looks like it comes with a Festool price too!
http://www.woodpeck.com/mftsquare.html

Yeah - but no systainer.

[Maurice Ungaro]

Ha ha! You're right, Kent! What a rip.

[Dan Clark]

Of the folks who think it's a gimmick, how many have a Festool MFT? (I do.)

When using the MFT as a table saw with the drop down guide rail, the rail is typically aligned to cut the wood at 90 degrees. So getting the guide rail square to the piece (not necessarily the table) is critical.

I have two Woodpeckers squares that I use for aligning the MFT guide rail to the piece being cut. They work well. I also have two sets of Qwas Dogs and one set of Quas Rail Dogs. All work well in some circumstances and not as well in others.

Qwas dogs work well when the MFT guide rail is perfectly square to the MFT. However, setting the MFT guide can be a bit tricky. The guide rail needs to be very low or sitting on the table to get it square to the table. When you lift up the clamps at both ends of the table, the rail can become unsquare.

This is why I use one my two Woodpecker squares and align the wood to rail regardless of whether the rail is square to the table. This results in square cuts virtually all of the time.

My Woodpecker squares are the 12" 1281 and the Carpenters Square. They work well, but a larger square would be better. At 17", this new Woodpeckers square would be more accurate. So it is not a gimmick.

Whether it is worth $270 is a different issue.

Dan.

[John Schweikert]

I'll be quite frank. People can and should be more resilient in fabricating their own basic tools sometimes. My crosscut sled I built has been measured and I can get .001" square accuracy per foot of length cut. With that I have cut acrylic triangles, plywood triangles that I use regularly to square and measure for square most anything in the shop, bandsaw blade, jointer fence, table saw blade, etc. I could just as easily laminate two small sheets of 3/4" quality ply, and cut an 18" triangle that would be .002" or less accurate in square. That's all that is needed to square an MFT rail setup. None of this is rocket science or requires million dollar CNC machines. Youtube has videos on how to set and measure a crosscut sled to near perfect square. Which such a simple shop tool, you can make some quality accessory tools.

Someone needs to come along and create a small business that makes quality tool accessories at price points which are actually realistic of what the item is and it's intended use. A $270 square is just plain silly. The old saying goes here quite well, Woodpeckers has gotten a little too big for it's britches.

[Ty Williams]

First, as a Festool MFT owner, the stock hinged rail alignment system thing sucks. I could get it square, it'd stay square for several cuts, the inevitably I'd bump something and knock it out of square. Now, it never went out of square too far for general carpentry use, just too far out of square for fine woodworking. I'd happily build cabinets or bookshelves with it, which is really what it's meant for. In the end, I ditched it completely and use the Qwas Dogs and Qwas Rail Dogs together. Rail Dogs align the rail to the grid and the Dogs align the work to the grid. Together, I get perfect cuts every time. The only downside is that it's a little more of a pain to adjust to different stock thicknesses than with the Festool hinge.

I'll be quite frank. People can and should be more resilient in fabricating their own basic tools sometimes.

A lot of us have limited shop time and would rather make stuff that makes us happy than waste that time making things to make the things that make us happy.

My crosscut sled I built has been measured and I can get .001" square accuracy per foot of length cut.

Doesn't matter. Your crosscut sled can't be used with a track saw. A lot of people are using track saws and don't own a table saw.

Someone needs to come along and create a small business that makes quality tool accessories at price points which are actually realistic of what the item is and it's intended use. A $270 square is just plain silly. The old saying goes here quite well, Woodpeckers has gotten a little too big for it's britches.

I'm guessing you haven't worked professionally in small-run manufacturing. I have. The cost to have a small number of something made is just stupid. Woodpeckers won't sell many of these triangles. I'd be willing to bet they'll sell less than 100, probably less than 50. That means the costs to produce them are divided among a very small number of units and the run is so small that there's no point in creating custom fixtures and setups, so the machining time is long. That costs HUGE money compared to something you're going to knock out 100,000 of. At the last place I designed parts, I put out a RFQ on a small metal item with a little machining and 2 welds. I wanted to see if we could get 10 of them made to see how they'd sell. The first 10 were going to cost us about 5 grand, but if we wanted to order a thousand of them, the cost only rose about 500 bucks. So Woodpeckers is probably charging a little extra for the red anodize and the fact that it works with Festool, sure. The bigger issue is that Woodpeckers, via their One Time Tool program, is positioning itself in the super-niche market of tiny-run tools, which means that OTTs are going to be quite expensive.

Now, a separate question is whether their stuff is worth it. It's entirely possible to create a product and calculate a economically correct retail price that's higher than the product's utility value. If that's the case, you just don't make the product. Woodpeckers definitely flirts with that line.

[Fidel Fernandez]

Here we go again. Please don't throw me bricks.

I was a big festool user, until one day I realized why I am paying premium dollars for a brand that doesn't work as it is suppose to be.
The MFT is for cross cutting, and other things. Well is a MDF top with holes, legs and metal around to hold the guides and the mdf top.

It is so difficult to have the MFT cutting square that we have to use Qwas dogs, squares, triangles, jigbs etc. The MFT is not capable to maintain the setup for long time. Most of the festool tools have some flaw/issue that we had to accept and live with it. Why?

Is It not enough to pay high prices to have a decent tool? Now, everybody is getting into the Festool business and making jigs to make festool work as it should.
Pressure festool to fix their tools in design time and provide something as good as the advertisements they make. Those Youtube videos are amazing.

I setup my Table saw to have the blade parallel to the miter guide (once), The fence to the blade (once).
My Bandsaw is adjusted and setup when I change blade, not every 2 or 3 cuts.
I can go and go for ever, but if they made the MFT and one way that it was easy to setup and stay square, then Woodpecker won't have any market to make those tools and this post never existed.

It is not woodpecker that is creating gimmicks, is festool doing it. They have obviously an amazing marketing system to advertise and they know how to do it.
I am in the process to build a top that will be on top of my regular bench or any bench, it will have a hinge rail for my guides and saws. It will be repeatable and I won't have to buy any jig to make my jig square.

We should make festool accountable for all the flaws on their tools instead of accepting them and living with a 85% tool and paid for a 120% tool. (overpriced).
My 1080 MFT is in a corner collecting dust. Most of my festool tools are like that, stored on their systainers and the only time they will see the light again is for taking them to UPS store after I sell them.

[Ty Williams]

I was a big festool user, until one day I realized why I am paying premium dollars for a brand that doesn't work as it is suppose to be.

To me, that's an interesting statement. I have a bunch of Festools, and the ONLY one I've ever had a single serious criticism of is the MFT's rail hinge (which is easily solved). Two vacs, sanders, router, tracksaw, jigsaw, Domino, etc, all of which do for me what Festool claims they do. I actually buy so many Festools because, unlike other brands I've tried, they basically just work.

What sort of problems did you have?