Maximize Your Festool MFT/3 Performance!

hey in this video check it out I'm going to show you some basic care tips of your mft3 but also some hacks and also some cool upgrades I've made over the years okay so the first tip is basic checking on your mft MDF top all right um there is no cross bracing underneath so over time you may get a slight cup because you're going to be cutting into the top it's a sacrificial top what I like to do is make sure you have a good straight edge okay and I'm going to use this for an example you can use shim stock whatever but here is where my bracing is around the frame and you see how this is tight all the way across what happens with constant cutting and I checked this area here because this is where I cut all the time with my factory set stops are is I'll go in here and there's a reason I do this watch see how it's tight here and here here I don't have oh it's starting to go in a little I'm starting to get slight bowing so what I'll do is I'll take a 0.5 millimeter shim and see how I can't get it under there I'm fine with that what happens is if you're doing mirror Cuts with your track saw and there's a dip in there and this has happened to me is your boards will go like this as you cut them simultaneously so it's always good to check the flatness of your mft3 now I'm going to check the from diagonally like this and I'm going to see how it's tight here it's tight here but you're going to see I'm slowly getting a very slight dip in there but it's not significant as of yet I have seen almost one millimeter dips in these over time because they've been cut a lot so a little maintenance I do on the mft3 is I sand the top to remove sometimes I'll use it as my notepad or they'll have some epoxy that drips on here or some stain or finish I just want to remove that and I use 150 grit if it's really degraded I'll start lower grits and then work my way up to 150. all right what I like to do is I like to run a dust extractor over it shop back because I can get out of these cut lines that I have in there I can get all the Dust after I vac I just do a quick wipe down to get any residual dust on there because MDF dust can be very fine especially with 150 Grit and there you go now it's time to put a quick finish on so the finish I like to use on my to seal my mft3 tops the MDF is your basic seal coat but I gotta mix it up first I went out and got this I think I got it at Lowe's it's zenzer Sealcoat and most people would apply that but I like to thin it I do a 50 50 cut and one of the hacks I want to show you is I have this piece of particle board okay in my plywood rock at any one time as soon as I start mixing something or finishing something on top of my mft I put this on here so let's get mixing I'm going to do this in ounces I'm gonna put three ounces of seal coat I've already mixed it up good and then 50 50 cut another three ounces of D natured alcohol so Sealcoat uh is Shellac and it's already been cut but like I said I cut a 50 50. so with shellac it dries Wicked quick so I'll start on like right here and try not to overlap too much and just apply liberally because you'll see that sucks right in there with shellac it's not that you really have to move but I don't like to overlap too much and I'm not worried about getting in my dog holes my 20 millimeter dog holes because I have a killer killer tip for that so I'll put this in a jar the my remainder of my seal coat but here's another tip for you I'm looking at my graduated cup measuring cup here and I got about two ounces so if you don't want to save your leftover and I did three ounces of Sealcoat and three ounces of nature alcohol I only use four ounces on an mft top so you can do two and two okay so we let the shellac dry for about 30 minutes and it's fine we could start working on it you can do this as often as you want throughout the year now there's a one concern you may have by watching the video I didn't pay too much attention to the dog holes and if you're using your mft for finishing or glue up sometimes these holes get clogged so your your dogs are really tight getting in and out so I found over the last year some really cool equipment and they happen to be these they're by ujk if we look right here these are ground at a perfect 90. so if there's any glue or a finish that gets down in there I can go in like this with a drill and clean them up because that is a perfect 20 millimeter so that just cleans the bore out of the dog holes there is another reamer by ujk and this is the handheld one but if you notice right here there's some insert tooling and what that does is creates and hopefully we can get in here a slight Champa so if I put that in here not only do I clean it but I create a slight chamfer and you're going to see in an upcoming in this video why that is significant if you don't want to do it by hand what you can do is there's a version that fits right in your cordless drill it Reams you have that Shear angle right there and you can do that little chamfer so make sure you place it in first and then turn it on and you'll see it creates that perfect chamfer all the way through and cleans out your hole so that's one of the upgrades I've made to my mft is I use these UGK reamers to clean out the dog holes okay for the Finish or whatever but also to put that chamfer and you're going to say why a chamfer so come in here Chris you'll see I these one of my favorite new upgrades to my table and you see how that has a slight chamfer on it when I put these in and I'll show you what these are momentarily they fit absolutely perfect snug this is out of a non uh Mari non-skid texture on top and I love I love the low profile so why do I have those I used to use this basically drawer lineup when I was sanding like this I didn't want to clamp it it pretty much didn't move on now I use these when I sand and they are just so so nice to have in your shop here's another upgrade that you can get for your mft3 these are the TSO power locks you're going to notice right here there's that slight chamfer and there's your chamfer there but I also want you to notice this see how this is perfectly in line and this is a 20 millimeter cylinder when I put this in here like this and see how this is offset and you see how it's perfectly flush that's why that chamfer is nice you're going to see when I tighten this okay it comes up and this little piece comes out and locks it down to the table perfectly this part it goes on a variety of pieces and yes we're going to do a standalone video on these power locks coming up I have a lot of great ideas for these this is why I got them so I've used these Bessie toggle clamps for a variety of setups over the years and I've always had to use a knob underneath in my mft to lock it down to my mft this is an inline one and this is a basically a hold down one but what's unique to this is there's that power lock so I could take that and it'll fit flush when I push it down and if I open it up here I could take a hex and lock it right down because this little piece here swivels it out and locks it down to the table so now I have a great hold fast clamping system all right so we're coming to the end of the video and I want to talk about one of my new favorite stops in my shop and I am finding so many uses for this not only on my mft but my big European style workbench it's amazing okay so I've had this for a few years and I want to talk about this this is still a vital stop in my shop it's the tds10 by Tso okay and I got one of these early on for planing stop and it works perfect for one inch three quarter but right here that is a standoff inside the hole so the new TDS 13 has been refined where it uses that same style of the power lock it doesn't lock down which is great but it has that slight chamfer so this the thickness of this piece of anodized aluminum is 12.5 and where this would get me in trouble and I'm going to put it back in here like this it was when I was working with what half inch stock now it's been refined so I can put that in there it sits that there's no offset underneath it sits flush and you can actually lock it in with a five millimeter hex like this it works perfect and I have found so many uses for this because it sits flush and I can work you'll see now I can work with half inch material this is a vital piece in a sedge tool shop now so as you can see in the video we use a lot of new upgrades but I also covered pretty simple maintenance and sealing the top of your mft three top all the links are down below in the description for all the new equipment we brought into this Edge tool shop you might have seen some of our videos where we've been using a straight edge extensively so hey as we always say such tool shop I always forget this be positive and stay sharp and I mean Wicked shop

Channel: sedgetool

Views: 25,116

Keywords: festool mft, festool mft 3 multifunction table, multifunction table, festool mft3, festool mft upgrade, festool mft 3 setup, festool mft 3 accessories, festool mft 3 review, tso products, ujk, track saw, sedgetool, #festoolsedge, #festoolhacks, #festooltips, #woodworking, tso products bigfoot, tso products triangle, sedgetool youtube, sedgetool domino, sedge tool pouch, sedgetool tormek, tso products grs-16 guide rail square, festool mft 3 unboxing

Id: 26N3Vkgqrm8

Length: 11min 35sec (695 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 30 2023