Thread: New to Festool?

Unable to attend your event but I am impressed that when using the EHL65 plane with a dust extractor (I have the Midi) there appears to be no dust. I have used it a few times indoors, trimming doors and have not needed to clean up. What a big plus!

Hi Steve,

i've had the CS50 table saw for around 2 years and I'm still very impressed. I use it for boxmaking where the cuts need to be particularly smooth and accurate, and the CS50 is a joy to use. If I could change just one thing it would be the blade mounting. The Fastfix on the CS50 uses a star shaped spindle which means only Festool blades can be used. While the Festool blades are excellent there is not a blade with a straight ground pattern, e.g. for cutting square-bottomed grooves for splines.

I'd buy the saw again in a heartbeat, but I'd love to be able to use third-party blades - or see Festool make a wider selection available for the CS50.

Brian

Originally Posted by homey

Hi Steve,

While the Festool blades are excellent there is not a blade with a straight ground pattern, e.g. for cutting square-bottomed grooves for splines.

Brian

There are two blades listed on the Festool site for the CS50, one for aluminium (492051) and one for laminates (492052) both of which would leave a flat bottomed groove.

Unfortunatly judging by the price they are only available in solid gold!

Hi Bohdan,

Thanks for that. Unfortunately, despite what looks like a tooth pattern that would produce a
flat bottom that has not been my (very expensive) experience. I bought both blades but in both cases the alternate teeth (the non square grind) appear to cut fractionally deeper than the flat ground ones.

Still love the saw, although I'd love it even more if it had a simple circular mandrel...

Thanks again,

brian

take a worn blade to a saw doctor specify the teeth you want. I get my festool blades resharpened and retoothed at Leuco in braeside

Originally Posted by Bohdan

Unfortunatly judging by the price they are only available in solid gold!

Pretty standard for Festool, they're the Apple of the tool world

Talking of using dust extraction with the EHL65 planer, I recall an interesting end user visit I once had. Customer had been loving his planer and had about 5 years trouble free use out of it. The switch played up, so it went in for a repair. Needed a very good clean and that was about it. A month later, the planer was back in the shop again.

Thinking the planer was on its way out, the customer purchased a new planer. 6 weeks later this one was in the shop too. Same thing, full of dust.

A site visit revealed the cause of the problem. The use of a Long Life Filter bag, (Which is great for planers and routers, as they produce copious amounts of chips), combined with the planning of MDF. Basically, the air flow through the extractor had become so restricted, due to the pores of the bag being clogged over time, that the positive pressure generated by the fan in the planer was forcing dust through every other exit it could. Hence the innards kept blocking up with dust.

Swapped to a disposable bag for MDF and the customer ended up with 2 planers that were in perfect working order once cleaned.

Moral to the story, as always, using the right tool for the job makes life so much easier in the long run!

Looking forward to seeing those of you who can make it on the 24th.

Thanks for popping in to say G'day to those who have already.

Wish I could make it as I am planning on getting some Festool tools when the funds are available but at this stage I'm just saving up as much as I can.