Saw

Hi. Sorry if this seems a daft question. I’m planning on doing some wall panelling using MDF and also some tongue and groove in different rooms. I will have 3mm MDF to cover the walls, 8mm MDF strips, and 6mm tongue and groove boards. These will need cut width ways at various parts and the 8mm ply (will be 3 inches in width as I’m using it to make wainscotting) will need cut. Can you recommend a saw that could do all of these and if so what kind of blade to make very smooth cuts? I’ve made planter boxes, some decking furniture but have only ever used a handsaw! I would like to invest in a decent tool to do this job. Thanks in advance.

Best thing is a tracksaw.
Mine is Aldi which is a scheppach rebadged. Or look in screwfix.
They come with a set of tracks that allow repeated accurate cuts.

If buying the timber in sheet form, also buy a sacrificial board to put underneath - cheaper the better but 12mm thick at least. Even insulation board is ok.

As Tigercubrider said, a track saw and a bench would make this relatively simple. At the top end, you have Festool and Mafell, circa £500-600. Below that there are a range of options from Makita and Bosch Blue and then brands like Scheppach and Erbauer.

Blade wise, more teeth equals a finer cut. 8mm ply wont be a challenge for a decent saw. The best blades I've used are made by Freud. The bundled standard blade may be enough for your situation. As Tigercubrider said, you need a sacrificial board below to avoid tear-out. Another option for that would be a bench like the Festool MFT or similar which has a sacrificial top built into the design.

It all depends on budget.

Don't forget you'll need some clamps to secure the sheets down as you cut.

Out of all my power tools, the track saw gets the most use. It's incredibly versatile so well worth the initial wallet pain imo.

Take it from someone who regularly rips down sheet material on site, sometimes into narrow strips, a track saw is completely the wrong tool to use for the job of ripping strips narrower than about 150 to 200mm. This is because the rail needs to sit fully on the piece you are ripping to make an accurate cut without slipping - something that even we trades types can sometimes find a challenge. It is far easier, faster, more accurate, more consistently repeatable not to mention cheaper to use a standard rip saw (I.e a portable circular saw) with a side fence to do the job. At work I generally have the choice between a Festool plunge saw and rails (or a cordless Makita plunge saw and rails) and my little 165mm 18 volt rip saw for such a task - and for the reasons stated I invariably choose the cheaper cordless saw (fitted with an appropriate blade, of course - 30 to 48 tooth in 165mm as it happens), despite being enamoured of my rail saws. Horses for courses! The other thing you can do with a conventional rip saw that is awkward, error prone and time consuming is to re-rip narrow MDF strip such as architraves and skirting - a task that a rail saw is completely unsuited to.

BTW, keep the rubber strips on the underside of the rail clean and they are sticky enough on plywood and MDF that you'll rarely, if ever, need to use those clamps to hold the rail in place. You rarely see trade users with a pair of those in use for their I tended purpose

JobAndKnock said:

Take it from someone who regularly rips down sheet material on site, sometimes into narrow strips, a track saw is completely the wrong tool to use for the job of ripping strips narrower than about 150 to 200mm. This is because the rail needs to sit fully on the piece you are ripping to make an accurate cut without slipping - something that even we trades types can sometimes find a challenge. It is far easier, faster, more accurate, more consistently repeatable not to mention cheaper to use a standard rip saw (I.e a portable circular saw) with a side fence to do the job. At work I generally have the choice between a Festool plunge saw and rails (or a cordless Makita plunge saw and rails) and my little 165mm 18 volt rip saw for such a task - and for the reasons stated I invariably choose the cheaper cordless saw (fitted with an appropriate blade, of course - 30 to 48 tooth in 165mm as it happens), despite being enamoured of my rail saws. Horses for courses! The other thing you can do with a conventional rip saw that is awkward, error prone and time consuming is to re-rip narrow MDF strip such as architraves and skirting - a task that a rail saw is completely unsuited to.

BTW, keep the rubber strips on the underside of the rail clean and they are sticky enough on plywood and MDF that you'll rarely, if ever, need to use those clamps to hold the rail in place. You rarely see trade users with a pair of those in use for their I tended purpose

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Can I just clarify, for the OP really, you're talking about when your main ply sheet (stock side) is down to 200mm width or so, that track saw use becomes difficult because of the need to have the rail fully supported, correct? If so, I agree, it needs to be planned around in the cut list or a jig made. It's the clamping thats a bit of a faff. You're not saying that a track saw is unsuitable to rip strips where the cut off strips themselves are narrower than 200mm, which wouldn't make much sense. Having read a lot of your posts, you usually do make sense I can make strips that are a consistent 0.5mm over 2.4m long on my track saw, on the "waste" side of the rail of course. It's even possible to cut veneers with it, if you ignore wastage.

Can't agree on the clamps, even when brand new I've had rails slip from time to time. The time it takes to put them is negligible (but maybe not for some jobs I guess)..the cost however, is another matter. £90 a pair at last check for the green crack versions, a blatant rip off but they do work incredibly well and last donkeys.

I know what you're saying but I'm still going with the track saw and a good bench for working with sheet materials, its just tailor made for it. Accurate to tiny fractions of a degree and for the furniture I build for shows, which is often tall, thats super important but the same is true with anything where compound angles come into play. It's always a compromise when trying to select a single tool to do a whole job though. As always, it depends on the level of finish required.

JobAndKnock said:

a track saw is completely the wrong tool to use for the job of ripping strips narrower than about 150 to 200mm.

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But if ripping a full length sheet into 90mm strips, you can still accurately cut the first 11 lengths with the track saw. The last couple of cuts, just use the other strips to support the rail and use a sacrificial strip at the end to stop the boards slipping whilst cutting. You just have to remember to add the blade thickness to the cutting line given that the track is sitting on the wrong side.

opps said:

But if ripping a full length sheet into 90mm strips, you can still accurately cut the first 11 lengths with the track saw. The last couple of cuts, just use the other strips to support the rail and use a sacrificial strip at the end to stop the boards slipping whilst cutting. You just have to remember to add the blade thickness to the cutting line given that the track is sitting on the wrong side.

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Which is completely contrary to the way these things are designed to work! The idea is that by sitting the guide rail on the actual piece you are cutting it should be possible to make accurate cuts by simply marking the end points of the cut line and aligning the rail to the marks - your way means that you have to take the 2.2mm or so thickness of the (Festool) blade into account each time you make a cut - a complete nonsense as far as I'm concerned, and something which introduces error.in my working environment I'm after speed accuracy and repeatabiliry and you don't get that in this way. When you consider that with a standard circular (half or less the price of a plunging rail saw) all you need to do is set the fence and make the cuts, which is accurate and repeatable (and cheap), I"m left thinking that some folk are determined to justify the technology they use at all costs. Rip down a sheet of MDF into 50 to 100mm strips and a properly adjusted circular saw will do the job two or three times as fast as using a rail guided saw

As to clamps, I virtually never use or need them, and although two the few exceptions are high gloss laminates and Corian, MDF and ply are generally fairly grippy. Same goes every other trade user I've ever seen using rail saws over the last 20 odd years

JobAndKnock said:

your way means that you have to take the 2.2mm or so thickness of the (Festool) blade into account each time you make a cut - a complete nonsense as far as I'm concerned, and something which introduces error.

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Sorry but I disagree. If I want to cut something at 90mm, I just mark it at 92mm. It's fairly trivial.

I get your point about laying out the guide taking longer.

I went down the Festool guide rail path about 15 years ago. I had worked for a cabinet maker as a "mate" when I was 20 but I am not a trained carpenter. Most of my cuts are much larger than 90mm, cuts too large for a circular saw's fence. I could use a long scrap of timber as a fence and clap it to the sheet but given my skill set, that would be slower and less accurate than using a guide rail.

I also feel more confident using using a plunge saw with regards to safety. It might be a false sense of security but the only time I had kick back (my fault) whilst doing a plunge cut out, the blade safely retracted back in to the housing.

I appreciate that you are far more skilled and knowledgeable than me in this subject but I still believe that a guide rail plunge saw is safer in the hands of a noobie or novice.

Some good points here.
Have done it both ways on site. Using the track saw adding the depth of the blade and using the guide on my circular rip saw.
But my favourite way is using the 2.5m sliding panel saw back in my workshop.

thanks everyone for the responses...will have a think!