Track Saw Square Comparison //TSO Products//Bench Dogs UK//Woodpeckers Tools//Insta Rail Square

hey everybody welcome back i'm jason bendt and in today's video i'm going to be covering one of the topics that everybody has been asking me to do for quite some time and that is doing a side-by-side comparison of four of the more popular track squares on the market the things that i'm going to be covering in this video are the compatibility of each one of the track squares the weight of each one of the track squares because i actually think that that is a very important factor to consider i'm going to be covering the cost of each one of these then i'm going to cover some of the different features specific to each one and then i'll close it out by sharing some of my thoughts opinions on some of my experiences with each one of these to give you as much information as possible to help you decide which one of these is right for you and your shop so we'll just go ahead and jump right into it so the four that i'm going to be talking about in this video the first one is the tso products grs 16 pe this is the one that i've had in my shop the longest uh and they actually do make another model which is the grs-16 and i'll kind of talk about that a little bit more throughout the video but this is the one that i have the next one that i'm going to be talking about is the woodpeckers tools adjustable track square next we're going to be talking about the bench dogs uk track square this is a relatively new product from bench dogs uk and then finally we'll be talking about the uh insta rail square uh which i believe is available through tool net and before i mention that tso products actually has two different rail squares this one is very similar to the other model this grs-16 so the first topic is compatibility and between all of these they are all compatible with festool triton and makita the only one that has additions to that that i'm aware of is the bench dogs uk and the additions to those are evolution and mark ii or mk2 both of those are european versions i don't think they're available in the states but for those of you guys that are watching uh overseas you know that might mean something to you but this one does have a little bit more compatibility with some of the other options that are available overseas so i mentioned i wanted to talk about the weight of each one of these and i think it's an important consideration because the weight actually can drastically change uh the user experience and i'll i'll briefly talk about that so let's go ahead and weigh the tso products one so we got about one pound 14 ounces we'll just say for the tso the woodpeckers definitely the heaviest of the bunch let's go ahead and see how much that weighs four pounds seven ounces we'll say go ahead and do the bench dogs uk i think this is probably gonna be the second lightest two pound seven ounces and at the insta rail square two pounds one ounce okay so this is actually the second lightest okay so i went ahead and laid these out just to kind of give you a visual representation of from the lightest to the heaviest and being the tso the lightest and the heaviest hands down by far uh being the woodpeckers i know to some of you that really may not be that big of a consideration but when you're using the track square a lot i think the weight is extremely important because it's really nice to just be able to move that track with that track square attached to it from one place to the other and not having to worry about it tipping or anything like that and when we get into features i'll be able to kind of talk about that a little bit more because there are some things that the heavier ones do have on them to combat that problem of tipping and it's a pretty cool design before i get into the cost i actually want to cover some of the different features because i feel like covering the features and then kind of breaking down the cost it'll make a little bit more sense so some of the specific features uh to the tso products model is one i think their clip is very very nice on how it attaches it's very very simple and it's a good design but one specific feature that i want to highlight is there is a plastic coating on the metal part that actually touches your track and it therefore does not cause any damage to the track so that's actually a really nice feature that i like uh the other one is i do believe these are compatible with bench dogs but more importantly these are actually compatible and designed to work with both models that they have to work with their parallel guides which i will be doing a video comparing different parallel guides here in the very near future but these can actually be used in conjunction with those to really make a great system in ensuring things are square and the size that you need them to be when cutting the other great feature about this and this is one of my favorite features about a couple of these is the fact that this is for 90 degree cuts okay but this is able to be used on either end why is that helpful and why is that important because let's use a scenario where i'm standing on this type of side of the table but my reference cut edge is on the opposite side of the table for whatever reason maybe i made the cut on that side but where i'm working primarily on this side or just the way that i put my sheet good up on the table instead of me having to either go to the other side of the table or to manipulate my sheet good or whatever piece i'm cutting to give me that good edge i can simply use this either on my side or the opposite side and it's as easy and i'll show you this as we go ahead and put all these on so you can see how each one of them attaches to the track but i can use this on my side or i can reference the far side it's very easy to just loosen this slide this down and now i'm working on the far side personally i use the far side the majority of the time because if i am going to clamp my track down i'm going to make sure that it's square and i'm going to clamp it on my side instead of having to go to the other side of the table to clamp down because i have to use the square on my side if that makes sense features about the woodpeckers adjustable track square quite honestly the biggest feature about this is the fact that it is adjustable so if you want to make cuts at 90 degrees that's fine but you can also make cuts and all these pre-designated angles 5 10 15 20 22 and a half 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 and really anything in between those are just all the adjustable stops the other feature that i talked about earlier when it came to weight is that they did add this piece of metal here which is acting as a catch for the material so it's not going to tip down like it would if it didn't have that because of the weight so this actually helps support it on the work surface whatever the case is going back to the feature i liked about the tso that is not the case with the woodpeckers the woodpeckers is used from one side and one side only it's used from my side right so i'm gonna butt it up against the material and i'm going to make my cut across so with this and this track square i would always be using it at the end that i'm starting the cut on and now moving on to the bench dogs uk which is definitely the newest one in my shop for sure i have had an opportunity to play with it a little bit uh figure out the features so i can talk clearly about it but one of the features is this is also compatible with bench dogs and you can actually buy it with bench dogs mine did come with bench dogs and it's great because you can put them in the table use that as your reference so that does come in handy uh using the bench dogs in addition to the track just to help ensure that things are nice and square and to really keep it steady the second thing is uh this came in third heaviest out of all of them um it's not overly heavy by any means but this one does have a very similar feature it does have this bar that you can slide out to help rest uh on the material that you're working on now with that being said this goes two ways literally right you can put it on the other side the reason why that is so crucial to me is because this is a very similar design to the tso in the fact that it can be used from either end but since this is heavier and having that latch actually will really help stop it from tipping i can slide this but i'm now not limited to not being able to use it on the other side right because i can just loosen this little knob here and i can slide it left and right as i need it another thing that's cool is the way that you actually attach this to the rail just slides on and then you just tighten these down and you're good to go and then finally the instar rail square this one again it's a very similar design all of them they all produce 90 degree cuts this one as i would say is definitely on the lower end and when we get into cost it's actually something that's interesting about this they do have a newer model they do have a version 2.0 that does accept bench dogs and some other things and another feature with this along with the grs-16 which again this is basically the same thing as that um is that you can make quick 45 degree cuts because you have this portion here so when you have that track on there you can actually set this up at 45. the clasp it does not have that rubber coating on here it's just a metal clip but overall there's really no significant special features about this one uh that are really worth mentioning now i'm gonna go ahead and show you a quick demonstration of how you put each one of these on the rails they're all pretty straightforward but uh it was at least worth me giving you an idea um of some of the things that i was talking about before these just slide on just like this right it can really be placed anywhere you need to so if you're doing a short piece or you need to take into consideration the space for the track saw before or after and then this just goes down into this groove and it latches shut and it works really good and then let's pretend that this is the edge of your material i went ahead and adjusted the camera because this is actually a really good example of of how the weight is going to come into play right so what we have right here is the tso being the lightest of all of them i put it up against i know i'm perfectly square it's not tipping it doesn't have it doesn't even have a tendency to want to tip the other thing that i had mentioned earlier let's say that i wanted to reference the opposite side i can now do that because i can slide the rail all the way to the other end and i have a nice long surface for that reference edge so that is the tso so the next one is the woodpeckers and i have actually found this to be a little bit more challenging to get on and off uh i guess i think the tolerances are just very tight but once you get it on there okay so we're good uh this latch right here operates the same way goes inside of here and there you go now if you wanted to make angle adjustments you would simply loosen this pull this out and then this whole thing turns and it's a really cool design so let's say i wanted to do a 35 degree i know now i'm making a 35 degree cut and obviously you would want to lock that back down but let's say i want to go back to 90. there we go lock that back down and it's good again remember i mentioned you know you you're all you're using this from your side okay so i am only going to be able to make the cut over here on this side this is a good representation of what i was talking about and why this is needed it's a very useful part of this design but if you notice it's hanging off the edge of the table and it's below the surface it's causing this to want to come up this is actually off the table and the way they counter that is by putting that lip on there and now it's perfectly level it's not going anywhere uh works really well but like i said if i'm going to make my cut it's designed for me to you know hold it here like this and i make my cut all right moving on to the bench dogs uk as i mentioned before this is very similar in terms of i can use it on both ends and i have a really nice long reference surface one thing to keep in mind is because this is adjustable make sure that whatever reference surface you're using that this is actually not protruding a little bit because that will can't uh your your cut if if you were using it so this just slides on just like that and this is really cool i think right here and i just tighten these down and it's on there and it's not moving um could it eventually you know make some marks on here maybe time will tell what we will see but that's the design and i think that that's pretty cool the way that they did that and then now let's go ahead and pull it off the edge so same thing you know this is the third heaviest one uh it doesn't want to tip over quite as much but you know if i wanted to make sure that i have a little bit of support there we go nice and sturdy it's not going anywhere and again i could do the same thing here and if i needed to adjust this and slide it down i could do so and then just lock it back down and then obviously i would move this over to the other side so you do have options and then finally uh the insta insta rail square go ahead and slide this on and again just like the other ones clips in place it's the second lightest barely any movement you know so that's nice um it doesn't have any turning has one nice long reference edge here uh but again i probably wouldn't trust this reference surface uh to make sure that i'm 90 because it's not a nice long reference surface but that's the instar rail square another option okay so i have these generally laid out from least expensive to most expensive um i'll kind of talk about that because this one is the tricky one but this one right here uh you can get from tool nut and i think it's it's right around 149 the one that they have now is version 2.0 that might be slightly different in cost i'm not 100 sure when it comes to the tso you have this one right here that comes in at 179 but you have the grs 16 which is this model and that one comes in at 159 now this one right here it is from the uk hence bench dogs uk and on their site for uh for this alone with none of the extra bench dogs or anything like that and mine does have the laser engraving which i'll talk about that in a second that is not part of this at the cost that i'm about to give you this one comes in at 95 pounds which is today roughly the equivalent of about 135 dollars now if you did want to get your logo or something laser engraved and that's actually a feature that i did not talk about and i apologize but they do give the ability to have laser engraving done and that is an additional 10 pounds so it's an additional cost they have four different options that you can do for this four different configurations and the most expensive configuration is around 169 pounds which is roughly 235 dollars so that'll come with the bench dogs and everything else that's why i say this is kind of difficult uh to to place because it depends on the configuration that you buy now with that being said it's coming from the uk so there are additional expenses that may be incurred such as shipping or customs fees or anything like that so that's all something you need to take into consideration however if you're over in europe and this is the better option because all of these things would uh be dramatically more expensive because you're there this is obviously a great value and a great deal and then the most expensive of this set is the woodpeckers and this is 269 dollars without the case if you decide to get the sustainer case with it it comes in around 350 dollars so again least expensive to most expensive all right so i'm going to close this video out by sharing uh some of my experiences my thoughts my opinions maybe my recommendations which one i think is best overall my favorite one by far i've been using it the longest uh the weight the ability to use on both ends is the tso i love tso product stuff i think they make a phenomenal product i would have to say that my second favorite um is actually the bench dogs uk and i think the reason why that is is because it is very similar in design and usability as the tso it's not the lightest it's not the heaviest but it's very close in design and style and i think it's a really really good option if you are somebody that is making a lot of angled cuts and you just want to take the thought process out of it i don't think there's a better option on the market i don't even know if there is another option on the market i'm pretty sure there isn't that gives you the adjustability that this one does so effortlessly and so easily if you can get over the weight i think it's a great option i bought this when it first came out i talked about this in my woodpeckers video i think it's a fantastic product i just don't use it so um i have other options that are available that i they work with the way that i do things in my shop and the things that i like but man if if you need to do angled cuts a lot or even if you need to do 90 degree cuts i mean it does that very well the weight is just a concern for me it's outstanding it's made very well and you have so many options and it just takes all the guess work out of it the insta rail square i i don't use this like i would never use this it's not that it doesn't do its job it's just that when i look at this one and if i spend ten more dollars i go with the tso products one which is the exact same uh design and style as this and actually has a little bit more features i'd spend the additional ten dollars so to me it's not if this was like 99 then i think i'd be saying like hey if you're on a budget and you want to get a a track square that's going to give you 90 degree cuts and even 45 degree cuts very quickly and effectively then maybe i would say okay this is a really good budget friendly model to me it's a no-brainer i would go with the tso so because it's not less expensive i can't say like hey here's your good value square right because 10 more bucks you know and you have the tso products one all right so that's it those are my thoughts on the track squares i apologize for this video taking so long to be completely honest with you i've just been waiting uh for this to show up in the shop so i could put this in the comparison and i'm really glad that i did wait so to go ahead and close this video out i really hope you found that information helpful uh i get asked constantly you know what's the difference between the track squares i hope i did a good job uh showing you guys that i will leave links to any of these products down in the video description if you want to buy some great if you just want to learn more information about them awesome if you guys have additional questions or you have more recommendations for videos like this please leave them down in the comment section below or you can go over to instagram benswoodworking and you can send me a direct message there you can also go to my website and fill out the form uh for future video recommendations or for me to answer questions during my lives that's gonna do it for this video everybody until next time get out in the shop try something new and i'll see in the next video thanks

Channel: Bent's Woodworking

Views: 273,178

Keywords: woodworking, woodworking tips, woodworking tips and tricks, how to, woodworking how to, woodworking channel, instruction, Jason bent, bents woodworking, woodworking tools, beginner woodworking, woodworking for beginners

Id: fBbrXqjXMrs

Length: 19min 26sec (1166 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 04 2021