Best Parallel Guides?

[Derek Arita]

What are the best parallel guides right now? And do they do narrow rips? By the way, all my guide rails are Festool.

[John Kananis]

I've only tried the tso so can only comment on those. Mine are accurate, easy to use and they do narrow rips if setup to do so but I've not used them for that.

[JOEL MONGEON]

I started with Seneca and ended up donating them to the rehab store and bought the woodpeckers one instead.
I've hears TSO are the best but I bought the woodpeckers set as they broke down and fit into a systainer. They work just fine. A bit step up from Seneca which had a lot of play in them.

[Jim Becker]

This video might be helpful to you:

[Rich Engelhardt]

What are the best parallel guides right now? And do they do narrow rips? By the way, all my guide rails are Festool.

I strongly suggest you sit down and figure out all the types of projects you plan to do where you will need or want parallel guides.
I ordered a set of Woodpeckers last year at this time & they were backorders for a couple of months.
By the time they were back in stock, I had time to figure out how little actual use I would get out of them, so I cancelled the order.

I see they are on sale now @ Woodpecker's for $449 - for the inch version Systainer. I believe I'll rethink my decision of last year. I have until the 27th.

[Steve Eure]

i don't know what your affinity is towards chinese tools, but bangood has a set that is a mere copy of Woodpeckers that at one time was in the ballpark of $120. I have that set and it was bought for a one off project and I couldn't justify the cost of the other sets just for one project. I originally wanted the TSO set since I have some of their products, but at the time could not justify the cost. The bangood system works well, and I haven't had any complaints out of it. If I had it to do over again, I would bite the bullet and by TSO.

[Rich Engelhardt]

This video might be helpful to you:

Interesting. All the Festool Systainers in the background & Festool guides aren't part of the video!

(I'm about --><-- this close to ordering the Woodpeckers while they are on sale. I wanted to rewatch that video again & the lack of Festool guides caught my eye)

[Jim Becker]

I suspect that Jason has the Festool guides, but he does like to compare and contrast aftermarket solutions, too. While a "yuge" amount of what Festool produces is really excellent, sometimes there are better engineered and/or more flexible aftermarket products. And it also needs to be noted that these solutions also work on Makita, Mefale and most other brand name plus alternatives like Powertec guide rails. Thankfully, much of the industry has embraced the same guide track specifications which is good for everyone.

[Michael Burnside]

I have a set from Benchdogs UK with systainer. Pretty happy with them overall. I never cut to exact dimensions with them but they make breaking down to rough sizes fast and easy.

[Derek Arita]

Thanks for all the help. I ended up ordering the Bench Dogs. I also ordered a Chinese knock off of Woodpeckers, just to see, as they got a good review.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I ordered the Woodpecker's. I thought about getting the knock offs, but, Woodpecker's is almost a local company & I really like the way they do business. They are a class act. Expensive - but - a real asset to the local economy.

[Brian Robin]

My experience is only with TSO and Kreg.

I recently bought the TSO parallel guide with grs-16 and the drop on attachment. I’m very pleased with this set up.


Haven’t done any thin rips but it claims to be able to with the long calibration rods that come with the guide kit.