So, I am typically quite respectful of my tools… I take care of them, baby some… they are my living. I work with them every day and I need them to keep performing.
But, yesterday was an interesting day for me… I own a Dewalt track saw. I own some Festool track. I have committed to the TSO Parallel Guide System. All of these are relatively recent purchases.
I have the TSO GRS-16 90 deg fixture and love it. But, I also want the parallel guides. I ordered some a while ago, and the tracks are on back order. But, I do already have the track clips that attach the rails to the track.
I had to make some repeatable cuts yesterday, and decided to jerry-rig some guides for myself using the TSO clips. Well, we cut out some bb ply, cut a groove down the middle, recessed the clips into the ends, built some stop blocks and used some old knobs from an old something or other. Put it all together, hooked it to the track and we were pretty excited….
... Until we figured out that the bottom plate of the saw is too wide to fit in the area where between the ridge the saw rides on, and the clips!
It took me about a minute to decide it was better to shave the saw plate, as opposed to trimming the clips (thinking down the road… other accessories would probably also need to be trimmed). So, we took a grinder, a belt sander and a file to the edge. Now there's a nice space so that the saw works, the clips work, and we got our four wardrobe doors cut out perfectly.
It's a funny mindset I have about not wanting to modify stuff… and yet, I have done it a million times over the years. I will say, it was hard to put a metal grinding disk to a perfectly good, relatively new, tool. But, in the end I'll probably forget I even did it in a couple of days… It'll just work and I won't think much about it ever again. But, getting up the gumption to do that to a tool?
What have you guys modified, if anything, to get the job done? Or, do you feel it's totally sacrilege?
