Track saw cutting station

[Weekend_Woodworker]

I am in the (gradual) process of replacing some shelving in the garage and trying to build a track saw cutting station. It should give me a bit more worktop space in the garage and make it easier to cut some bits of wood that are a bit large for the table saw but in a small garage.

The unit will be up against the wall. I am just starting to think about how best to fix the track in place relative to the holes. I think there are three broad solutions:

1) use some fittings to attach the track to the side of a couple of dogs
2) buy some dogs that allow the track to slot onto the top
3) use a rail hinge system, either made or bought

I had thought that the hinge would be the easiest to use, but am not sure how much space it will need at the back by the wall and therefore whether this is a workable solution.

I was wondering what other people use and any advice on which way to go?

Thanks,

Mark


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[MattS]

Are you familiar with Peter Millard and 10minuteworkshop on YouTube loads of useful info on there.

Me personally I have mine against a wall in a relatively narrow workshop (like Peter's) but decided against a rail hinge, partly because there wasn't much choice when I made it a good few years ago. Doing it again though, not sure I would use a hinge, two dogs under the rail and I lift the whole thing off and store out the way to use the bench for other things works for me. I use a Benchdogs fence system which is brilliant and would thoroughly recommend both the product and the company, they give great service.

 

[Weekend_Woodworker]

Thanks Matt, really helpful insight.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[AJB Temple]

Have you used a track saw much? If not, I would think twice before building a dedicated workstation.

What are you planning to cut? If it is mainly sheet materials, then you may find that maximum flexibility is your friend. I use a track saw a great deal. Mostly to handle 8ft by 4ft sheets of ply, MDF, cement board and backer board and occasionally other things such as oak doors. I have three lengths of long track (one does cross cuts and two are joined to do rip cuts) and also a short 600mm track for doing fiddly bits. If your work-surface is secure and flat (not bowed or cupped) then you may well find that you hardly ever need to clamp the track down. The rubber bottom strips on mine make the tracks very secure on the board. For my bench I use three trestles with two stretchers and plonk a thick sacrificial sheet of ply on it. I tend to store a few sheets of unused board beneath the top. Hence this bench is very flexible and can go anywhere.

Peter Millard used the Festool top with holes in it for ages, with a folding short track. Works fine but is not ideal for full sheets. The folding short track is good for cross cuts, but is usually redundant if you also have a sliding mitre saw. The holey bench tops are good for repetitious work with the same measurement (eg making a batch of drawers) but less useful for dealing with full size sheets.

 

[Steve Maskery]

I don't know if this helps you, but I have a mini-series on YouTube about the way I deal with sheet goods. It begins here, and the other two should follow:
https://youtu.be/ch_weOHpDg8
[youtubessl]ch_weOHpDg8[/youtubessl]

I've used it for a couple of decades and it suits me just fine.
S

 

[RogerS]

Piece of Kingspan seconds. Lay it on the floor. Sheet material on top. Make cuts. Pick up Kingspan. Sorted.

 

[AJB Temple]

I know some do that Roger, but it is a right pain working at floor level for many. My knees are so shot from falling off stuff that once I'm down, getting up again is not fun. You can't really do good work on the floor with expensive materials like BB ply which is now silly money. It's just as easy to use 2 or 3 collapsible trestles with a sacrificial sheet on, and you've got an instant cutting bench, assembly bench and painting station. When not in use, fold up the trestles and prop board against a wall. I spose whatever floats each person's boat.

 

[Weekend_Woodworker]

I have had the Makita track saw for quite a few years. For breaking down 8x4 sheets I have a knock down table I put in the drive.

The new unit in the garage is going to be about 60cm by 160cm so not huge, but the biggest I can fit in the space.

I have several lengths of track. Two lengths of about 120 I can join together and a 120 length I cut into an 80cm length and a 40cm length which is useful for smaller cuts. I don’t have a miter saw, so tend to use the track saw instead where it is difficult to move the wood or the table saw if the wood is smaller.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Cabinetman]

Just a passing thought, and please can I say I have never seen or used a track saw, would it be possible to stand it all on edge so that you are cutting the ply or whatever like they do at B and Q, sorry can’t remember the name of those saws.
Ian

 

[RogerS]

....... You can't really do good work on the floor with expensive materials like BB ply which is now silly money. ....

Yes, you can. Maybe you are unable to, but I and many others do and so that is not a reason to discount my way of doing it.

I spose whatever floats each person's boat.

Precisely. So why not just simply accept what I suggested as an option to the OP rather than shout it down from your own perpsective ?

 

[RogerS]

Just a passing thought, and please can I say I have never seen or used a track saw, would it be possible to stand it all on edge so that you are cutting the ply or whatever like they do at B and Q, sorry can’t remember the name of those saws.
Ian

It's a wall saw, Ian. Here's one.

 

[MattS]

Mark I remembered this morning, my first set up with my bench was these bench dog clips, wasn't sure if I still had them but found them!

https://www.axminstertools.com/ujk-tech ... 60QAvD_BwE

I didn't get on with them but if you have some tall dogs already I can post these for you to try some sort of track saw station set up? Just sitting there not being used. Page says they work with Makita rail - I use Festool.

 

[AJB Temple]

From my perspective Roger I was not shouting either down or otherwise :lol:

 

[AJB Temple]

Ian, people do use track / rail saws vertically, as basically they are a glorified circular saw, but it's not easy. They work best when gravity is keeping the saw secure on the rail at the precise depth you set. I do vaguely recall a chap on UKW making a wall saw similar to the one Roger displayed above. Maybe 5 years ago now. Can't recall if it worked out. Probably handy if you have the room.

 

[Weekend_Woodworker]

Matt, thanks for the very kind comment offer. I don’t have any dogs yet, but your advice is exactly what I was looking for.

I think I might go down your route of buying a pair of dogs that the rail sits on top of.

I had seen on AliExpress a rail hinge that seemed cheap, but it is not clear how much overhang it has at the back.

Just found this amazing item on AliExpress. Check it out! ￡43.49 53％ Off | Parallel Rail Guide System For Circular Saw Guide Rail Electric Saw Lift Guide Rail Connector Set Woodworking Accessories
https://a.aliexpress.com/_EviXmUZ

I am also aware that Derek Cohen manufactured a very smart hinge himself.

I think from a practical use perspective the hinge needs to be at the wall side rather than the front, but is likely to take 10 to 15cm off the cutting distance at the back. However with the rail on the dogs presumably the closest you can’t cut to the wall is dependent on the distance from the front of the saw to the lowest point of the blade which may be a similar distance.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[MattS]

That rail hinge is very cheap! The downside of something like that which clamps on is that it is not associated to the dog holes which makes cutting square more difficult. A system which has the rail in the dog holes means that you don't need a fence, just a couple of low profile dogs and as long as the hole pattern is good your cuts will be.

Which reminds me, I got the UKJ system for cutting dog holes to allow me to do a bespoke size and do my own again in the future. Loads of people sell premade tops if you can work with an off the shelf size.

 

[Doug]

Genuine question, what exactly is the benefit of a rail on a hinge? :eusa-think:

I have two dogs at the back of the bench for the wood to sit against then a dog at the front in-line with one of the back dogs to rest the rail against, this gives perfectly square cuts & doesn’t tie a rail up being permanently fixed.
I cut up boarding most weeks & have done for years & have never seen the benefit of a hinged rail plus you lose space having to have the bench away from the wall.

 

[AJB Temple]

Doug, wasn't it a thing popularised by Festool and their pimped up mobile MFT workstation? Not sure I can see a good reason for them either, but maybe because I've never used one.

 

[Weekend_Woodworker]

I am guessing that the benefit of the rail hinge is that it holds the rail somewhere whilst you take wood on and off the mft.

Matt’s point about ensuring that any hinge is perfectly aligned with the dogs holes is a good one and quite obvious when spelt out like that.

On the basis that both Doug and Matt use dogs that you place the rail on top of that seems like a good endorsement of that approach.

It is good to know how simple it could be with three or four dogs to get accurate square cuts. My next thought is about getting repeatable cuts of the same width. Is this where a fence at the back with a stop on it comes in, or are there better ways?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Doug]

My next thought is about getting repeatable cuts of the same width. Is this where a fence at the back with a stop on it comes in, or are there better ways?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The problem I see with this is if you have an 8’ long board & want to cut it into 18” pieces for instance you need lots of space on the right hand side of your track for the 6’ 6” overhang especially if you have a rail hinge, for me this is where parallel guides come into play as the board stays in the same place & I move the track & guides

I made these for just this purpose as it’s not something I use often.

 

[AJB Temple]

Use of Kingspan and similar as a sacrificial support board for rail saw use. If you do use this as a baseboard, make sure you have effective extraction from the saw and wear a mask. This is lifted directly from the Kingspan safety PDF Section 4

Ingestion: Not acutely toxic if swallowed. If swallowed, call a POISON CENTER
or doctor.
Most important symptoms and effects, both acute and delayed: High
concentrations of dust may cause coughing and mild, temporary irritation
following a short-term exposure. Heavy prolonged industrial exposure to high
airborne concentrations of dust may cause impaired lung function. Chronic
bronchitis, pulmonary fibrosis and respiratory tract lesions have also been
reported with high level inhaled dust exposures.

https://www.kingspan.com/content/dam/ki ... -us-ca.pdf

 

[Lons]

Well using a mask and eye protection is advisable whatever you're cutting, remember chipboard, ply and MDF especially release toxins and many hardwoods are serious irritants. I use Kingspan as a sacrificial sheet as well and as I set the blade at the correct depth there's very little cut made into it. Anyone who swallows bits of Kingspan is a plonker.
I think you're trying to teach granny to suck eggs tbh.

 

[RogerS]

Well using a mask and eye protection is advisable whatever you're cutting, remember chipboard, ply and MDF especially release toxins and many hardwoods are serious irritants. I use Kingspan as a sacrificial sheet as well and as I set the blade at the correct depth there's very little cut made into it. Anyone who swallows bits of Kingspan is a plonker.
I think you're trying to teach granny to suck eggs tbh.

:text-+1:

 

[SamQ aka Ah! Q!]

Use of Kingspan and similar as a sacrificial support board for rail saw use.

AJBT?

1. The (presumably) COOSH-soundalike statement from Kingspan could be applied to all man-made boards I can think of. Peter Millard - with his sacrificial MDF insert - must be in particular risk, never mind Doug and others who make their living from dimensioning said boards. If you add to that the known respiratory sensitivities for raw timber (https://www.mountainwoodworker.com/arti ... _woods.pdf) then your stance against Kingspan individually is a little difficult to understand the justification. The 'gent wot works wood' ignores dust extraction at his peril. Just ask Rob Woodbloke about working exotic species!

2. On the other hand, if your insistence on rebutting this post:

by RogerS » Yesterday, 22:34

Piece of Kingspan seconds. Lay it on the floor. Sheet material on top. Make cuts. Pick up Kingspan. Sorted.

is motivating your reply, then, with respect, your persistence is coming perilously close to your own much-used "ad hominem" approach. You have already written here that:

I spose whatever floats each person's boat.

Why not leave it at that? Digital urinating vertically on a perpendicular surface is unseemly.

 

[AJB Temple]

Thank you Sam. Very nice of you to pipe up once again. But wrong. :lol: I looked at it prompted by Roger's suggestion, because I remembered getting asthma from it when we insulated between stud in the kitchen a couple of years ago, despite taking precautions, and was actually quite surprised to find the warnings on the Kingspan site. The problem with it is that the dust is superlight and floats around in the air a lot. I agree MDF is not great either, and having gone through 50 or so sheets of it in the last few months, I use full extraction for that.

Each to their own method and each to their own tolerance of airborn particulates.

 

[Lons]

I agree MDF is not great either

The understatement of the year Did you have to google that too? :lol:

 

[MattS]

Maybe we should do an update to the expression fighting like cat and dog to fighting like middle aged men on a wood forum? :lol:

Getting back to the topic, for repeatable cuts that's why I got a fence with a flip down stop. I got one of these:

https://benchdogs.co.uk/collections/fence-systems-1

Doug's parallel guides are great for long cuts but generally I use my tablesaw for thin rips (purchased after the track saw when I realised this was a limitation) but the track saw is great for cross cuts.

 

[SamQ aka Ah! Q!]

by AJB Temple » Today, 19:17

Thank you Sam. Very nice of you to pipe up once again. But wrong. :lol:

AAhhhh....the superior put down. I'll add it to my collection.


MattS? I totally agree with you. It's pathetic, undignified, childish. Attempts to "agree to disagree" are brushed aside in a display of utter oneupmanship. I am simply trying to illustrate that sweeping opinions are exactly that. Opinions.


P.S. Thank you for making my day. I was 'middle-aged' some time ago. :eusa-dance:

 

[Alasdair]

Just going to chuck my tuppence worth into this discussion, I bought two of the Stanley plastic trestles (B&Q for about £40) and ripped some stair stringer I had into approx 3"x 1 1/4" two at 7' and 4 at about 3'9" (its what I could get from what I had) I straightended one edge and ripped to a finished width then half lapped together in a grid pattern (a bit like what Steve showed in his post)this gave me a fairly rigid 7'x3'9" surface to lay sheets on to cut with the track saw it is also easily dismantled for taking out or storing away.


For repeatable cuts I purchased one of these from Banggood https://www.banggood.com/ENJOYWOOD-Upgr ... &rmmds=buy and its fantastic if you take the time to calibrate it.

 

[Alasdair]

I really struggle with photo orientation...

 

[RogerS]

I really struggle with photo orientation...

I've fixed it for you, Alasdair. Are you on a Mac or a PC ? We do have some stickies on the best way to handle photos but they elude me at the moment !

 

[Alasdair]

Thank you for fixing it, I'm on a PC and have tried reorienting them before and after posting but it still eludes me. I know it will be a simple fix but my simple head isn't getting it.

 

[Steve Maskery]

My friend Brian and I made a (knock-down) wall saw once. It worked well enough, but it was a pain to set up, it was a pain to store. Fine if you have acres of wall space and use it often, otherwise I would pass.
Doug's setting guages are very like mine (only not as good, natch - where is the scale? )