Track Rail 2.2mm Kerf Offset Tool

thingiverse

Frustrated yet again by the track saw track positioning always being extremely fiddly when wanting to cut small pieces off a larger piece of stock, I recalled a little aid shown by the "10 minute workshop" by Peter Millard on YouTube. The problem is that ideally you want to use the plastic strip along the edge of your track rail to perfectly align to your cut line, with the piece of stock that you want to keep located under the rail. This results in the kerf of the blade fully positioned in the waste area, and the plastic strip helping to reduce any tearout. This works well when what you are cutting is as wide or wider than the rail itself, as you have the full bottom surface of the rail supported, and you can clamp the rail directly to the part you are cutting. The problems with attempting to cut strips thinner than the rail is that you will often need to use a second piece of stock under the rail to support the back and ensure the rail is held flat to the stock you are cutting. Additionally, because the Festool style rails have their clamping slot towards the back of the rail, you often cannot clamp to the stock being cut, and since the non-slip strips are in the same area, you really lose a lot of the secure connection between the rail and the stock being cut. The MFT table can help with some of this, but just picture the scenario where you have a full 4x8 sheet of heavy birch ply, and you want to cut a 10mm strip the whole 2440mm off of it, you can't hang the rail out in space with just the lip in contact with the sheet, if you flip the rail around so it is supported by the sheet, you need to compensate for the kerf (2.2mm) when marking your cut line, which is a pain in the ass. So this little 3D printed dingus makes this whole procedure a lot easier. The idea is that you mark your cut lines just like normal, then you put the rail on the other side of the cut line than traditionally, and slide this under the plastic lip, with the 2.2mm bar butted snugly against the edge. Then you line up the line to the dingus, and it compensates for the kerf without having to do any funky measurement compensation. To be clear, this means the plastic strip is no longer protecting the piece that you are cutting from tearout, but there is a replaceable sacrificial part for the Festool track saws that helps with that (I just wish it was better designed to deal with different plunge depths.) I know this is not a very complex solution, but if you have run into the same frustration, and have a 3D printer, give it a try and see if it is worth the quarters worth of plastic.