Thread: My Custom Built Guide Rail Deflector

Finally got tired of dealing with the poorly designed Festool Guide Rail Deflector. I decided to try my hand at making my own. I wanted several must have features which were missing from Festool's version, namely -

1) - Extend the entire width of the guide rail
2) - Eliminate the hump caused by the attachment thumb screw
3) - Provide higher & longer end walls to prevent hose ride-over
4) - Have end walls flare outward to more easily guide hose coming in from sides
5) - Allow access to the clamping slot while deflector is attached to rail (indispensable when clamping the rail to material for rip cuts)

To accomplish these goals the deflector would have to be considerably larger, but I wanted to keep the amount of additional track loss to a minimum. The original deflector takes up 1-1/4" of track, my version increased that to 1-1/2".

I produced this out of MDF and used the feather key from the original deflector with a M4 x 12mm button head machine screw recessed in a 3/8" counter bore to lock the deflector to the track. It requires a 2.5mm hex key to tighten.
See photo # 10 for painted version.