mft angle guide and track straightness

[JosephThomas]

Hey guys,

I know lots of the tempting answers will be "depends" but please refrain.  Thinking of grabbing a used festool angle guide that comes with the mft (along with the 1080 track).  My question is, what tolerance should be acceptable for the straightness of the track and the back rail of the angle guide?  I have the veritas 3' straight edge I'll take with me to go check it out, just wondering what other people think....my thinking is that for most furniture, a 5 thousandths gap here or there is fine...thoughts?

[jussi]

I haven't used feeler gauges to measure the track but it should be really flat.  I've used it several times to joint boards and they come out as flat as if it came out of my jointer.  The back of the track (side opposite splinter guard) should also be parallel with the the ridge that the saw rides on.  This allows you to use a square (I use the woodpecker framing version) to reference off and make square cuts.  I'm not sure this is a claim Festool out right states in any of their documentation but it's the case in the tracks I've used and is validated by many on fog who do the same thing.  If it were me I would put the straight edge on and if I can't see any light it would be good enough.

[estesbubba]

JT just went out into my shop and put my LV 50" against my 55" track and there are no gaps. That said 5/1000 or a little light should be fine. Both my old Steel City and current SawStop biesemeyer style fences have dips probably bigger than that and have never caused problems. 

[JosephThomas]

Thx guys...we'll see if it works out, craigslist can be shady sometimes.