The
Festool MFT is a great table for cutting wood of many sizes and shapes. But is there a way
to cut wood repeatably to an exact width?
In the background you can see a cabinet carcass which we made using the new
Domino Joiner System — more on that later. But that cabinet points out the need for
"ripping" wood to exact widths — what we would do with a table saw and
fence in the usual shop.
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In the
picture above, Elena is picking up her very first "exact cut" plywood using our
new "digital width fence." She set the fence for 2.25 inches and made her
cut.
A link to the dealer for this digital device is at the end of the next
page.
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And here
is the cut — exactly 2 1/4" wide and this dimension is reproducible without any
further fence adjustment. That is great for face frame building and many other tasks.
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I will
show you how the digital fence works, but will backup a bit. To make it work, the measured
cutoff will remain under the fence and the main piece will be to the right of the table.
In that case, I decided that we would need an extension so that the offcut will not fall
to the floor.
I had seen the Festool extension table listed a number of times but never
needed it. Now it is time to see if it will do what I want.
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The
extension comes assembled. All Elena needed to do was to move the support leg back and
forth in its track to adjust for height.
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The
extension uses this mounting bracket which slides smoothly into the table's extrusion.
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She uses
a long straight edge to help her make the extension level with the MFT work surface.
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The one
"leg" is not a leg at all but a support rod that fastens to the tables crossbar.
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After
abut 15 minutes adjusting support brackets, Elena make one final check of the extension.
It is perfect. Time to make cuts.
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With the
MFT meant to be multi purpose and easily changed, we wanted to install the digital
fence so that it would be solid as a fence but easily changed. She is using one of the
adjustable hold-downs to clamp the digital fence to the MFT fence.
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