Making a narrow rip jig for the Festool TS-55 track saw

I bought the Festool TS-55 plunge and track saw for cutting sheet goods safely and it excels in this respect, producing clean cuts of all types of sheet goods, with excellent dust extraction, coupled to the Festool MIDI 2 dust extractor. I have found the saw very versatile and not only for sheet goods. It works very well cutting hardwood and softwood boards and now I have added the UJK PARF long super dogs, it is also brilliant for trench cuts in wood up to 100mm x 100mm. Although I do have a table saw in my workshop, I now use the Festool TS-55 for all cross cutting and trenching.

Thin rips cut with the Festool TS-55 track saw

Up to now I have cut thin rips, say down to 5mm on the table saw and when I wanted even thinner cuts I have used the band saw. I was looking at a Festool product video which showed a special jig to produce thin rips. Upon further investigation I found third party jigs as well, but for something that I might use now and then, I could not justify the expense, so I decided to see if I could make my own.

TS-55 set up to cut a 2mm rip

The MFT top that I built into my bench has a grid of 20mm holes, which with the use of the UJK parf dogs, allows for perfect square and angle cuts. UJK also make clips which slide on to the Festool guide rail and these allow for perfect alignment of the rail and keeps everything square. These clips also allow for the rail to be raised to 90 degrees to the workpiece or removed altogether and then when you fit it again, you know that the rail will be in exactly the right place. Neat.

UJK guide rail clip attaches to the rail and the UJK PARF Dog

With this in mind, I thought that I could use this feature for my thin rip jig and the rail would help hold narrow workpieces in place and with the ability to lift out of the way, it would be easy to adjust the cut.

The UJK rail clips allow the rail to be easily raised and lowered

The jig for this exercise was simply made from six pieces of 13mm soft wood

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The workpiece overhangs the table but is held securely by the end stops and the guide rail

The two outer pieces labelled Fx, are set up as end stops and once set do not move being held in place by screw clamps.  The pieces marked Adj are secured by quick clamps and can be moved back and forth to set the depth of cut. Note that the workpiece is held in place by the end stops by a friction fit and this prevents any lateral movement. The example in the photo above was set up to cut thin rips from boards 330mm long. The jig on the MFt can be adjusted up to a width of 630mm as required.

The depth of cut is set with a combination square allowing for the kerf of the blade

The TS-55 blade kerf measures 2.2mm, so when setting my combination square to the width of the rip that I want, I must add the the kerf thickness as well. First I release the quick clamps and with the rail raised I set the workpiece in approximately the right position by eye, then I lower the rail and check the actual depth with the combination square. Once I am happy with the position, I secure the depth stop first on the left and then on the right, checking the depth each time. With a bit of practice this only takes about a minute. 

I have set the jig up using the Festool 1080/2 guide rail

Using the jig I was able to make repeatable 2mm cuts and all these have a superb clean edge with no tearout thanks to the precision of the TS-55. 

I cut this thin 1.42mm rip from the edge of a jointed softwood board 

Finally, I wanted to see how thin a rip I could cut with this jig. Selecting a board that had been planed and jointed I adjusted the jig first for a 2mm cut as before. Then after three incremental adjustments the TS-55 produced a cut of just 1.42mm as the photo above shows.