Festool495648 Routing Slide for Mfs Template System

Used this to make a router plane to flatten wood on an mft table works great

By itself, the Festool MFS-FS router carriage is a reasonably designed and beautifully manufactured piece of sheet metal. Unfortunately, as an integral component of the Festool template system, it inherits the weaknesses of the MFS rails.The aluminum MFS rails, on which this carriage rides, tend to deflect (or outright move) under the vibration and forces of routing. That movement can ruin the work piece; or deflection can result in significant tool marks. Also, if you need to join MFS rail sections end-to-end to assemble your routing template, you'll discover that the threaded inserts on the side ends of the rail segments obstruct the motion of the router carriage, by colliding with the pictured clamping handle and its T-nut.The router carriage itself has proven satisfactorily rigid, being precisely cut and bent from thick sheet steel. The build quality is nice.Before purchasing the MFS-FS router carriage, I imagined it would allow me to quickly route clean and precise coves. Instead, I've found the process rather slow and sloppy. Obviously, my expectations were naive. I was imagining hours, but ended up laboring for days on my current project; and the result is not as accurate and consistent as I expected.When routing large coves, I've had difficulty removing the tool marks that are left on the bottom and sides of the coves as a result of template/rail deflection and movement. I'd be reluctant to use the MFS-FS on show surfaces, due to the virtual certainty of movement and deflection of the aluminum rails.The steel construction of the router carriage will barely slow down an errant carbide router bit. Much like the aluminum template segments, if you're in the midst of hundreds of passes with the router carriage, and the plunge-spring fails to extend the router when you expect, you might sweep your still-spinning cutter into the steel carriage. The recent bites I accidentally took out of my MFS-FS and MFS 700 are within the established margin of slop for deflection and tool marks. I'm not sure if I feel disappointed, or relieved that there is no point in replacing the damaged components.If I had to do this sort of routing more often, I would have already started building a redneck milling machine or computerized gantry router. I was only about 30 minutes in with the MFS-FS when I began fantasizing of such machinery. But, for one-offs or occasional use, what else are you going to do? The MFS-FS router carriage is a lot more affordable than a furniture-sized milling machine or CNC gantry router.

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