Klaas Bals' Blog

I made a cube in MDF, and cut all the sides myself with my Festool TS 55 at an angle to make mitre joints. I wanted it to be a 40cmx40cmx40cm cube, but the first cut I made I measures 40cm, and cut with the 2mm thick saw blade one the inside. So after that first cut, I decided to build a 39.8cm x 39.8cm x 39.8cm box. No one will see this ;-).

Now the the good, the bad and the ugly of the Festool TS 55

The Good

The saw has perfect precision. Full stop.

The Bad

Sawing requires a real vacuum cleaner, not just an old Phillips one that happens to be standing in the garage. For one, the Phillips just doesn't displace enough air to keep up with the saw dust. And the side of the Phillips waste bag is just too small. I needed to refesh the bag after sawing 5 meters.

The Ugly

I'm not 100% happy with the result. Some of the corners are fine, others aren't. The biggest gap I have is about 0.5mm, but you notice it. The reason that this didn't work out perfectly is not that the panels had different sizes, but rather that it was difficult to clamp the box together with the 4 clamps I had.

Obviously, I still have to learn a lot, and that's why I'm doing it of course. And by building this cube, I learned a lot. For example, now I know that when take the 6 sides of the cube, all cut with a 45 degree angle, all with grooves for biscuit joints, and you dry fit them, it is very difficult to take it back apart, even though you're not using glue.

I'm wondering how the cube would look when I use my router to make the edges and corners round. I may try that later.

Here is a picture of the cube, next to the saw.

I've also included pictures with a close-up of each of the corners. As you can see, I should be able to do the gluing better next time.

I've been talking about making some cabinets for a very long time now. I actually made plans for a big cabinet in the office in our previous house. I started pulling out the ceiling, and then we decided buy our current house (so at the same time we decided to sell the old house). Luckily I could easily put the ceiling back in, but I didn't get to actually building the cabinets.
Now, in our new house, there are plenty of rooms that need cabinets, so I've been creating plans again. However, when I build my own cabinet, I want it to have miter joints for the side panels and the top. And possibly for the doors (if I can achieve that kind of accuracy, I will try it...). There aren't that many woodshops that can saw boards at an angle, and transporting panels that have been cut with an angle are easily damaged, because of the sharp angle.
So I decided I was going to saw the panels myself. And some tests with my Black and Decker circular saw quickly convinced me I needed proper tools.
So I bought the Festool TS 55 EBQ-Plus-FS. It came with some guide rails, that allow you to saw along the rail, ensuring a straight, splinter-free cut.

I ordered it online, at Toolmax.nl. I ordered it Saturday, after seeing that they had it in stock. Monday I got an email that the order was shipped. Tuesday I got the saw. Wednesday (today) I got the guide rails. Tonight I sawed a couple of small pieces and it works incredibly well.

I'm very happy with the Toolmax.nl store, it worked great. After only receiving the saw without the rails on Tuesday, I sent an email, and got a prompt response saying that guide rails typically come a day later (I suppose because the rails are 140cm long, probably requiring different handling). If you need to buy powertools, or other tools, I would strongly recommend them.

For a glimpse of how it works, there is a commercial at YouTube showing it in action: