Tracks

With Festool, DeWalt and Makita making Track saws we often get asked what tracks will work with what saws. Well if you own the DeWalt Saw good news! The DeWalt Saw had been designed so that you can use it on DeWalt Tracks as well as the Festool Tracks and the Makita Tracks since it has slots which will fit any of these tracks. DeWalt also can be used on both sides of its track. This is especially useful when plunge cutting counter tops where the space behind the back plunge cut is too small to fit your saw. You can make your cut on the front of the counter and then just slide your rail so the other side is on the next line you need to cut, and you only need to flip the saw around. The Festool Track and Makita Track have an extra slot on the top for attaching certain accessories, this slot means the Festool and Makita saws can only be used on one side of the rail. The advantage of the secondary slot on the top of the rail is that you can attach various accessories such as the anti-kick back stops or the parallel guide system.

Dust Collection

It is always handy to have some form of Dust Collection hooked up so that you don’t end up with sawdust all over your workshop. All three saws have a 1 3/8″ internal diameter for their dust collection port and will work with the same dust collection equipment. If you don’t already have a dust collector a Wet/Dry Vac that doubles as a dust collector is a good choice. Also many of these Dust Extractors have auto on off features that will detect when your tool is in use and will only run when needed. This is a great way to cut down on noise in your shop and also power use.

Clamps

Makita Track Clamps, DeWalt Track Clamps & Festool Track Clamps are interchangeable with any of the other manufacturer’s tracks since they all use the same sized slot.

Saw Blades

BloomingtonMike: over at festoolownersgroup.com tried out both the DeWalt and the Festool saw and found that the Festool Saw Blades work just fine with the DeWalt Saw, but that the DeWalt Saw Blades were just a little too large to work with the Festool Saw. He did note that with a little grinding on the mechanism for the riving knife on the Festool Saw that the DeWalt Blades should work on the Festool Saw, though we can’t recommend this.