Trend clamp guide (8 foot)

[johnelliott]

http://www.trendmachinery.co.uk/clampguides/cgpro.shtml

The sliding table on my saw has a travel of 1.4 metres. I ocassionally need a straight cut longer than that so I looked at a number of possibilities, including the Festool system.
My local tool shop was having a 'vat-free' day so I decided to buy the Trend 8foot clamp guide and the router and saw base plates.
The router plate is very easy to use as it has a 30mm hole for the router's template guide, and two bolt holes which fit the elu/trend configuration.
The guide itself is sufficiently long to allow the plate to be started onto a 8foot sheet before the cutter makes contact. A shallow cut with a straight cutter will leave a very smooth edge. You need to work out how much the clamp guide needs to be offset by, in my case it's 130mm from the edge I want to trim
The saw base plate needs to be drilled, as does the sole plate of the saw I used (a £115 Makita). Having drilled the plate and mounted the saw with the guard drawn back I then carefully plunged the saw through the plate. This means that in use the blade will not be guarded, so care is needed.
The cut was all I wanted it to be, reasonably smooth and, as far as I can tell, dead straight.
In conclusion, a very satisfactory purchase.
I would have bought the 4foot version as well, as the long one is awkward to manoeuvre in the workshop, but, like I said, my table saw has a 1.4m sliding table so I don't need it
John

 

[Aragorn]

Thanks John
A useful review. Sounds quite a bit more reliable than my current method of clamping a straight length of wood as a guide!

 

[johnelliott]

I should have said that the really groovy things about the clamp guide are the way the base plates locate onto the guide so that it isn't necessary to keep up side pressure on the tool to keep it against the guide, and that the clamping action means that there are no clamps to obstruct the path of the tool.
John

 

[Dewy]

I just looked & nearly had a heart attack when I saw the price.
I would be hard pressed to pay the VAT alone for a clamp guide like that.
It looks the business though

 

[Adam]

Thanks also from me John, that's a useful review and it's slowly changing my mind away from the planned Festool. I see Mafell have a pretty cool guide system as well.

Choices choices....

Adam

 

[Jake]

Bosch have a cheaper festool equivalent as well (which I have), but it will only fit their circular saws and routers as the tools have to have a baseplate with a trench in it that sits on a ridge on the guidetrack (like the festool, I think). Works a treat.

Advantage with the Festool/Bosch(/Mafell?) systems is that the edge of the track is the cut-line, so its a bit easier to set-up a cut than it looks on the trend version, albeit that it is a lot less flexible in terms of the tools you can use with it.

Jake