Rail Angle Stops

A guide rail gives you a straight cut. An angle stop gives you the same cut at a set angle, repeated as many times as you need, without measuring and marking each piece.

What does a guide rail angle stop do?

The angle stop fixes to the guide rail and registers against the edge of the workpiece, holding the rail at a set angle to that edge. Once it is locked, every piece you feed under the rail gets cut at the same angle in the same place.

That removes the two slowest parts of angled work. You are not marking each piece out, and you are not re-checking the angle between cuts. It also removes the error that creeps in when you mark ten pieces by hand and the tenth is half a degree off the first.

The advantage over a mitre saw is capacity. A mitre saw is limited by its blade and fence to the width of stock it can swing through. A rail and angle stop are limited only by the length of the rail, so they handle sheet goods, wide boards, benchtops and stair strings that will not fit a mitre saw at all.

Which Festool guide rail angle accessory do you need?

Three products cover angled and square work on the rail, and they do different jobs.

Accessory	Use it when
FS 90 Degree Guide Rail Square	You want repeatable square cuts and nothing else. Clips on in one movement, sets 90 degrees to the workpiece edge every time. Works with routers as well as saws, which the other two do not.
FS Guide Rail Adjustable Angle Stop	You know the angle you want. Sets anywhere from -60 to +60 degrees with detents at the common ones, then repeats it.
FS Guide Rail Combination Bevel	You do not know the angle, because it already exists on site. Transfers the angle off the work and onto the rail without measuring it.

What angle range can you cut with the FS angle stop?

The adjustable angle stop covers plus and minus 60 degrees, with mechanical detents at 0, 15, 22.5, 30, 45 and 60 degrees in both directions. The detents cover most of what comes up: 45 for mitres, 22.5 for eight-sided work, 30 and 60 for hoppers, splayed carcases and roof work.

The printed scale reads in one degree increments, and the locking knob holds firmly enough to sit reliably between detents when you need an angle the detents do not cover. That matters more than it sounds, because real buildings rarely present a round number.

Two corrugated stops fix into the recess underneath the rail at any position along it, giving positive registration against the workpiece edge so the rail cannot creep. When they are not in use they store in a cavity built into the body of the angle stop rather than going missing in the bottom of a Systainer.

How do you cut to an angle that already exists on site?

Most angled cuts in a fit-out are not a number you choose. They are an angle the building already has: a wall that is not square to the floor, a reveal out of plumb, a rake that follows a staircase, an infill panel between two surfaces that were never parallel.

The FS Guide Rail Combination Bevel is built for that. You set the bevel against the existing angle on the work, transfer it to the rail, and cut. There is no measurement in the process, so there is no reading error and no accumulated rounding when the same angle has to be repeated on a run of panels.

Worth being clear about what this is not. A wall that is out of square is one job and the bevel handles it. A wall that is wavy or bowed is a scribing job, and that is a compass, a jigsaw or a belt sander, not an angle stop. The bevel solves the straight-but-not-square case, which is the more common of the two on a modern fit-out.

Is the FS angle stop accurate out of the box?

We asked an independent maker rather than answering that ourselves.

How do you hold the angle stop and the workpiece?

There are two clamping options and they work independently or together, depending on the cut.

• Clamp the rail to the work. FS rapid clamps slide into the recess underneath the rail and pull it down onto the workpiece, in the usual way.
• Clamp the stop to the work. The end of the trammel arm has a left and right bracket with recesses that accept the same rapid clamps, so the stop itself can be fixed to the workpiece rather than relying on the rail alone.

Using both at once is worth doing on anything narrow, on anything vertical, and on a run of repeat cuts where the setup needs to survive being knocked. Using the stop clamp alone is useful when the rail needs to lift and reposition between cuts but the angle reference has to stay put.

Angle stop or mitre saw?

They overlap less than they look. A mitre saw is faster on repetitive cuts in narrow stock: architraves, skirting, framing, anything that fits comfortably between the fence and the blade. If that is the work, the saw wins on speed.

The rail and angle stop take over as soon as the material gets wide. Sheet goods, benchtops, stair strings, wide boards and door blanks are past mitre saw capacity entirely, and the rail cuts them at any angle within its length. It also goes where the mitre saw does not, because the whole setup travels in a Systainer and a rail bag rather than needing a stand and a vehicle with room for it.

For cross-cutting in particular, the FSK cross-cut rail is worth knowing about. Paired with an HK, HKC, TS 60 K or TSV 60 K saw, it registers off the workpiece edge and gives you a portable mitre saw setup without carrying a mitre saw.