Thread: Deal of the Century - Sliding Table Saw

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

I don't use a rip fence on mine using a Fritz & Franz jig instead hence no risk of kickback.

All I can see is a guy with a £20k Martin sliding panel saw making up a jig and using that great big heavy sliding carraige to do what I can do on a £300 sliding compound mitre saw with a home made fence and flip stop. I can tell you that if you have to shove a 150kg carraige back and forth more than a few dozen times to make repeat cuts it becomes very old, very quickly, even on something like an Altendorf or Martin. A fine example of too much money, far too little experience or common sense, I'd say (BTW when I ran a shop we had a £15k 3.2 metre Altendorf slider breaking down 3 to 5 tonnes of MDF and plywood just to feed our point to point CNC every week)

Originally Posted by Job and Knock

All I can see is a guy with a £20k Martin sliding panel saw making up a jig and using that great big heavy sliding carraige to do what I can do on a £300 sliding compound mitre saw with a home made fence and flip stop. I can tell you that if you have to shove a 150kg carraige back and forth more than a few dozen times to make repeat cuts it becomes very old, very quickly, even on something like an Altendorf or Martin. A fine example of too much money, far too little experience or common sense, I'd say (BTW when I ran a shop we had a £15k 3.2 metre Altendorf slider breaking down 3 to 5 tonnes of MDF and plywood just to feed our point to point CNC every week)

I am sorry you had to read something you obviously found upsetting and I hope you day gets better.

Originally Posted by Job and Knock

All I can see is a guy with a £20k Martin sliding panel saw making up a jig and using that great big heavy sliding carraige to do what I can do on a £300 sliding compound mitre saw with a home made fence and flip stop. I can tell you that if you have to shove a 150kg carraige back and forth more than a few dozen times to make repeat cuts it becomes very old, very quickly, even on something like an Altendorf or Martin. A fine example of too much money, far too little experience or common sense, I'd say (BTW when I ran a shop we had a £15k 3.2 metre Altendorf slider breaking down 3 to 5 tonnes of MDF and plywood just to feed our point to point CNC every week)

I would love his workshop & equipment. This is the first that I have seen the Fritz and Franz sled however I use jigs and sleds some of which could be considered variations / improvements on the Fritz and Franz sled on my small inexpensive Woodfast TS250 table saw with sliding table. Thankfully the slider only weighs a few kilos!

I'm not convinced that the Fritz and Franz sled is such a great idea for ripping long but relatively narrow / thin workpieces, as seen about the 4:20 mark in the video. The compression force used to "secure" the workpiece would tend to bow the workpiece away from the table surface potentially increasing the risk of kick back due to an unsupported and therefore potentially unstable workpiece. Like all tools, jigs etc it has limits. I use the T slots in my sliding table to mount a sled fitted with Kreg T track and use the Kreg 3 Bench Clamps for thin rips, truing waney board edges etc.

edit - the example shown using a 500 x 120 x 30 mm ish work piece is fine, however a 500 x 30 x 5 mm work piece would be a bit iffy.

I haven't had any issues with the F&F jig and I can't say I have seen any reports of safety issues. It was developed in Germany to overcome the dangerous situations in which it excels, holding relatively small stuff on a slider. The jigs are given away or were at trade shows in Germany to encourage their use mainly among commercial operators initially then the hobbyists saw the potential and began making their own. Like any jig you have to be aware of potential dangers and we all see different problems, I for instance will not use a push stick except as a last resort as I see them as dangerous and in my view almost dangerous enough to have them banned as a safety item but that view is certainly not wide spread as we all know.

With this saw, when you move the fence (the one which is on the sliding table which runs perpendicular to the blade) from front to back does it stay square to the blade?

Does the F&F jig basically mean that you dont have to move it?

Originally Posted by qwertyu

With this saw, when you move the fence (the one which is on the sliding table which runs perpendicular to the blade) from front to back does it stay square to the blade?

Does the F&F jig basically mean that you dont have to move it?

I haven't operated this particular saw but Royflatmate has had one for quite some time now so I suggest a PM to him would get an answer to your question. With my Hammer K3 I never move the cross cut fence except on very odd occasions and it sits at the very end of the table (not the operator end) and the F&F jig uses the CC fence as a stop. The rip fence is only used to set to the length that you want cut off when the piece being cut is placed in the F&F jig. There are a heap of videos on YT showing the F&F jig being used. The beauty of the F&F jig is it is zero to the blade so you can mark and cut using the jig as the measuring reference.

So I decided to take a chance and took advantage of the deal. It'll be a significant upgrade from my current saw! I'm currently waiting for the guys at IWL to respond to an e-mail to discuss delivery. It's only early in the year so I'm not expecting to hear from them until next week, but I hope it doesn't take longer than that.

Question regarding the F&F jig - is the front part of the jig (part which sits against the fence) there only to have a zero clearance on that side and to have a T track?

Originally Posted by qwertyu

Question regarding the F&F jig - is the front part of the jig (part which sits against the fence) there only to have a zero clearance on that side and to have a T track?

It depends. It does give a zero-clearance reference against the blade for positioning of the workpiece for the cut, but it doesn't support the workpiece from underneath so doesn't protect against chip-out or the dust extraction system sucking small offcuts into the saw. I suppose you could add a zero-clearance support (which would be basically two big slabs of masonite or thin MDF I guess, one for the F&F jig to ride on and another for the back of the blade to close the slot on that side) but that's not really part of the F&F jig... and it would mess with dust collection.

My understanding is that the front piece of the F&F jig is to provide a cut reference and to carry a stop if you have stops fitted to your F&F (a good idea I think, the fold-down variety at least)... and of course it references against the cross-cut fence to make it consistently square.

My first F&F jig was two bits of MDF that was intended to be an experiment and I sort of did not make another for some years as two bits of MDF worked perfectly well for me. Then a friend sent me photos of one he had made and I got the bug to make something better...

The first photo shows the jig just as I left it at the last cut, the second shows the HDPE guides I made after I got sick of the wooden ones swelling and sticking in the slot.

IMG_2130.jpgIMG_2133.jpg


The I got the high tech bug and copied what my mate had done but it turns out that I hardly use it at all though it sure impresses people. The one problem it has is that because of the flip stops it won't close right up so thinner stuff can't be cut using it. The only reason I used the Incra stuff was for repeatability at the end of the day.

IMG_2134.jpg

Showing a block of wood marked and using the zero function of the jig to cut to the mark

IMG_2137.jpg

Cutting the bit of wood using the rip fence as the measured stop set to 40mm.
IMG_2142.jpg

Originally Posted by qwertyu

With this saw, when you move the fence (the one which is on the sliding table which runs perpendicular to the blade) from front to back does it stay square to the blade?

Does the F&F jig basically mean that you dont have to move it?

Coming back to this I am not clear on what you are asking. Did you PM Royflatemate?

Yes I did, I dont think he understood my question too, but I did message him again.

Basically, if the crosscut fence is moved, is there a positive stop or mechanism to move it back to 90deg exactly without having to check it?

with your FF jig, if you want to cut something longer then your jig, does your flip stops on the saw's crosscut fence reach the work peice? or is there a way to get repeatability on that the sled side of the saw?

The jig is primarily a device to use either for ripping or holding small pieces as shown in YT videos. Cross cutting is also done with it for smaller pieces then when they are longer the jig is removed and the cross cut fence and flip stops are used.

Originally Posted by djeddy

It depends. It does give a zero-clearance reference against the blade for positioning of the workpiece for the cut, but it doesn't support the workpiece from underneath so doesn't protect against chip-out or the dust extraction system sucking small offcuts into the saw. I suppose you could add a zero-clearance support (which would be basically two big slabs of masonite or thin MDF I guess, one for the F&F jig to ride on and another for the back of the blade to close the slot on that side) but that's not really part of the F&F jig... and it would mess with dust collection.

My understanding is that the front piece of the F&F jig is to provide a cut reference and to carry a stop if you have stops fitted to your F&F (a good idea I think, the fold-down variety at least)... and of course it references against the cross-cut fence to make it consistently square.

The requirement for zero clearance, underside support and protection & minimizing chip out is why I have abandoned the F&F style and gone down the rip / cross cut sled path with multiple sleds for different tasks. The F&F certainly has a place in the wood workers tool chest.

I make repetitive cross cuts for very small parts used to construct inlay banding, then rip the blocks to thin strips on my 10" TS. No fancy Incra system, just simple old fashioned attention to setup, accuracy & precision. Toggle clamps, scrap and waste Masonite are invaluable to me. Trial cuts on waste of similar dimensions until I'm satisfied with the setup accuracy then the repeatability and precision of my work flow. To much effort in making inlay blocks to make mistakes.