posted by: DrChops
2/14/2007
as a woodworker with too little room (sound familiar?) in my garage-based shop to slide a plywood sheet across my unisaw, i primarily wanted a circular saw for that job. i know what you're saying: the unisaw is on a mobile base, so why not just roll it out in the driveway and do the job. well, there's just enough slope to our driveway that the image of a guy chasing his table saw out into the street seems a little too real... but, i digress.so, i really needed a circular which would make reasonably clean cuts, so that i wouldn't have to spend too much time cleaning up the result. i had 2 other circular saws which were serviceable, but the 7 1/4" saw was pretty heavy, and the 6 1/4" trim saw was a little underpowered. even with my shopmade guide, the top ended up furry, and the bottom was an exercise in chipout. breaking a panel down consisted of a circular saw pass, followed by a couple of passes with a flush trim bit in my favorite router.and not to mention that the circular saw always did it's finest imitation of mount st helens spewing saw dust. (at least the router has dust collection.) i've got my nifty spaceman spiff helmet to keep my lungs clean, but the shop wasn't so lucky. i know many people say that sanding is a woodworker's least fac=vorite thing to do, but i humbly nominate shoveling/sweeping/vacuuming saw dust as a pretender to the throne.now along comes the festool ts55 with its guide rail. several people told me that it was the saw i needed. but the price seemed high. i also have a barrel grip festool jig saw, which i really like, but it was priced closer to the other jig saws. the ts55 is almost twice the cost, but it really is more than twice the saw. it's everything they say it is.the guide rail is a simple piece of art; just measure, plop it down and slide the saw along it. unless you push sideways really hard, it'll stay put without clamps. and the cut is super smooth with very little furring or chipout. no need for a router to do cleanup. i even trusted my prized cherry veneered panel to it; came out perfectly. the table saw could not have done any better.and the saw is very easy to adjust: push the depth stop in, and slide it up/down, or twist the bevel knob, tilt the saw, and lock the knob again. it's fairly lightweight and slides along the guide like it's on ball-bearings. my fein shopvac nozzle slips right into the dust port and stays put. no more clouds of dust, just a few stray sprays from the underside of the sheet. i can cut half a dozen sheets and make less mess than i used to make cutting one. i haven't tried using the plunge cut mechanism per se yet, but it is nice to retract the blade into the housing at the end of the cut. no precariously balanced spinning blade.overall, the system is very well-designed, very easy to use, and very powerful. my only quibble is that i wish the blade were mounted on the left side of the saw as i prefer to cut right-to-left. if you try it, you'll buy it.
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