I am an old Tool and Die Maker. When I started woodworking I wanted everything to be within a couple of thou. to 5 thou. Took awhile but I've finally learned flat, parallel and square is much more important than dimensional measurement. How flat, parallel and square? See some of John Lucas' articles. It also depends on the piece. I'm sure Jerry Work does his sliding dovetails to an accuracy he needs not what it measures.

The parallel guides look like they would be great for cabinet carcases. You just need the parts to all measure the same within < .5mm not necessarily to an exact dimension any closer than the.5mm Brice states.

Anyway I guess my point is don't get carried away with measurments and tolerances. Repeatiblity is what they will excell at.

Thanks Brice for the great review. I had been riding the fence. Guess I'll be buying soon.

This is just my 3 cents worth.

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Les

I am very new to woodworking. I do not have a table saw, but I am interested in either buying the Saw Stop saw or the Festool Plunge cut system with the table and all the fancy pants gizmos.

Your review and the accompanying comments have really given me an education. I am not sure I have made a decision, but I feel like I am getting a better understanding of what one can do.

I have also been told that another option is to start with a high quality bandsaw.

Right now, I cut things with either a circular saw, or my Japanese hand saws. I use my hand planes for planing, and the router table I built for dados and groves. But I am rambling on a bit. Mostly I just wanted to say thanks.

Oh and I have the Festool jigsaw/sabre saw (what ever it is called...I just know I love it.)

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Brian Meeks
http://ExtremelyAverage.com

One way of easily improving on the .5mm, without measuring, is to slide the guides close enough to each other so that the stops touch. You can then set the stops to the same dimension and then feel to see they are flush to each other. Then you slide them apart to the gap you need for your material. This step will improve parallelism whther your guides are Festool's or homemade. Corwin may argue that his Incra slide don't need this step and they probably don't unless they somehow lose calibration.

This is true. And because of this, setting up for each new dimension is a little faster and easier. But, my big beef with the Festool guides is not that they aren't accurate enough, but rather, 1) how awkward they are to handle between cuts -- especially the extension part of their equation, and 2) that you need to 'shim' thinner material. Since the scales need to be positioned along the side of the material, your shim stock must also match the length of your material -- this may be easier with a collection of narrow strips, but you see my point.

I used the Incra tracks because they worked very well for this application. The scales and stops make initial calibration simple compared to other methods and the stops can be adjusted to accommodate a variety of material thicknesses -- the leg on the stops can be raised up when cutting thin material or lowered for thicker stock. I would be just almost as happy with something like the scale track instead, as they are not as bulky and would be good enough for most users. Back when I first posted about my jig, many responded that using the Incra tracks and stops made the jig too expensive -- that seemed odd to me for a Festool board, and even more perplexing now since Festool has introduced their (more expensive) guides.

The Festool parallel guides are certainly a usable product. But, I think they could have made a much better product if they had gone with anther set of design considerations. Many will choose their product simply because it is readily available. I only hope that they will consider a better design in future versions of these guides.