One Track Rail, Job After Job

A track saw rail is not really a cutting tool. It is a set-up tool. The saw was always capable of a straight cut, and what the rail removes is everything you had to do before and after it to get one.

We timed six common jobs, on site and in the workshop, doing each one the way most people do it now and then again on a rail. A rail, a joiner set and a pair of clamps earned back what they cost in less than eleven days of work.

Where does the time actually go on a cut?

Almost never in the cut itself. A 2.4 metre rip takes seconds. The time goes into everything around it.

• Marking out. Measuring the finished line, then measuring the offset from the blade to the edge of the saw base, then marking that second line instead.
• Setting up. Finding a straight edge, clamping it, checking it has not moved, checking it is square.
• Fixing the result. Planing a wandering edge, scraping chip-out, re-cutting a piece that came up short.
• Cleaning up. Sweeping and vacuuming a client's house after cutting in it.

A rail deletes the first two entirely. You mark one line, lay the splinter guard on it, and cut. It largely deletes the third, because the guard supports the fibres at the cut and the saw cannot wander. With a dust extractor connected it takes most of the fourth as well. That is the whole argument, and it is why the savings below are measured in set-up and cleanup rather than cutting speed.

How do you cut a door to width on site?

The usual method is a straight edge clamped to the door, an offset measured off the saw base, and a hand plane afterwards to clean up where the saw drifted. On a hung door that has to come off, get trimmed, and go back on, that cycle repeats for every door in the house.

With a rail you mark the finished line once. The splinter guard sits on that line, the clamps hold the rail to the door, and the cut comes off the saw finished on both faces. There is no offset to calculate, so there is no offset to get wrong, and no planing afterwards.

Saving: about 60 minutes a day, roughly $79. Measured over 10 doors cut on site at a labour rate of $80 an hour, covering reduced mark-out, about 3 minutes per door on faster cutting, and 30 minutes of cleanup avoided through dust extraction.

How do you cut laminate and melamine panels without chipping the edge?

Melamine and laminate chip on the exit side, so the traditional answer is to score the line first, cut wide, then plane or file back to the mark. That is three passes to get one edge, and it is why a lot of panel work gets taken back to the workshop rather than cut on site.

A scoring track saw makes a shallow pre-cut along the rail before the main cut, severing the surface fibres so the full-depth pass cannot lift them. The result is a finished edge on both faces in one pass, cut where the job is rather than back at the shop.

Saving: about 70 minutes a day, roughly $93. Measured over 10 panel cuts at $80 an hour, covering about 5 minutes per panel with no scribing or edge planing, no straight edge set-up, 20 minutes of cleanup, and the trips back to the workshop that no longer happen.

How do you cut cement sheet squarely without spreading silica dust?

Cement sheet gets cut with grinders, shears and circular saws, and all three are slow, inaccurate and produce respirable crystalline silica. Shears leave an edge that has to be dressed. Grinders throw dust across the whole site.

A track saw with a PCD blade on a rail cuts sheet accurately in one pass, and because the saw is shrouded and connected to an M-class extractor the dust is captured at the blade rather than released. An angle stop on the rail handles the square and angled cuts without re-marking each sheet. This is the largest single saving of the six, and most of it is cleanup.

Saving: about 80 minutes a day, roughly $119. Measured over 20 cuts of 2.4 metre sheet at $80 an hour, covering about 3 minutes per sheet on measuring back and clamping from offset marks, and 30 minutes of cleanup.

Silica dust is a health hazard and extraction requirements vary by state. Check your obligations with the regulator for your jurisdiction.

How do you cut fibre cement lining boards to length?

Lining boards are repetitive. The same cut, forty times, and every one currently needs the line squared and marked before the saw touches it. Eyeballing the cut to save time is where the errors come from.

An FSK cross-cut rail registers against the edge of the board with a fixed stop, so the cut is square without marking out. Set it once and every board after that is the same. Paired with a PCD blade and an M-class extractor it also solves the silica problem on the same job.

Saving: about 40 minutes a day, roughly $53. Measured over 40 cuts a day at $80 an hour, covering about 30 seconds per cut with no need to mark or eyeball the line, and 20 minutes of cleanup.

How do you cut tapered cabinet infills?

An infill panel between two surfaces that were never parallel is a tapered cut. Done conventionally it means ripping the material parallel first, then planing the taper in by hand, checking the fit, and planing again. It is slow, it is dusty, and it is a hand-plane skill that not everyone on site has.

On a rail the taper is just a line. You mark the two ends of the finished taper, lay the rail on them, and cut it in one pass. No parallel rip, no planing, no fitting cycle. The panel comes off the saw at the angle it needs to be.

Saving: about 50 minutes a day, roughly $54. Measured over 10 infills at a labour rate of $65 an hour, covering about 3 minutes per infill on ripping and planing avoided, and 20 minutes of cleanup from the planing dust that never happens.

How do you cut rafters and beams to angle?

Structural timber is heavy and awkward, and it is usually cut where it lies. That means squaring a line right around the beam, then following it freehand with a circular saw and hoping the blade stays on it through the depth of the cut.

An FSK cross-cut rail locks to the beam and holds the angle, so you mark one point rather than squaring a line all the way round. The saw follows the rail through the full depth, which gives a square cut on a section a hand-held saw would wander through. For a run of identical rafter cuts, the angle is set once.

Saving: about 35 minutes a day, roughly $46. Measured over 30 cuts at $80 an hour, covering reduced mark-out with only one mark needed, about 30 seconds per cut, repeat cuts without repeat marking, and 20 minutes of cleanup.

What does it add up to?

These are not cumulative. Nobody cuts doors, panels, cement sheet, lining boards, infills and rafters on the same day. The point is that whichever of these jobs is yours, the same rail does it.

Job	Scenario	Saved per day
Cutting cement sheet	20 cuts of 2.4m sheet, $80/hr	80 min, $119
Cutting laminate or melamine panels	10 panels, $80/hr	70 min, $93
Cutting doors on site	10 doors, $80/hr	60 min, $79
Cutting tapered cabinet infills	10 infills, $65/hr	50 min, $54
Cutting fibre cement lining boards	40 cuts, $80/hr	40 min, $53
Cutting rafters and beams	30 cuts, $80/hr	35 min, $46

Every figure is measured against the scenario beside it and covers reduced mark-out, faster cutting and less cleanup. Your own labour rate, job mix and volumes will differ.

What else runs on the same rail?

Everything above is cutting, because cutting is where most of the time goes. The same rail guides the rest of the range as well.

• Routers. The OF 1010, OF 1400 and OF 2200 run on the rail with the matching guide rail adapter, for straight grooves, dados and housings that would otherwise need a jig built for each one.
• Jigsaws. TRION and CARVEX models take a guide rail attachment, which turns a freehand tool into a guided one for straight cuts in thin material.
• Shelf pin drilling. The FS/2-LR rail carries a row of holes at exactly 32mm spacing, so the LR 32 system drills a full column of shelf pins without marking any of them out.
• Insulation. The ISC 240 insulation saw runs on the same rail.

One rail, one set of clamps, one way of working across the range. The rail you bought for cutting doors is the rail that drills the shelf pins.