Adaptive Cutting System Master Kit Reviews

3 Rating 1 Reviews

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Woodcraft Supply, LLC is one of the nation's oldest and largest suppliers of quality woodworking tools and supplies. You'll find Woodcraft stores in more than 70 major metropolitan areas across the U.S.; and Woodcraft annually distributes 1.5 million catalogs featuring more than 10,000 items to all 50 states and 117 foreign countries. The Woodcraft catalog is a standard among woodworkers as the most complete offering of first rate products for woodworking available anywhere. Woodcraft also publishes six issues of Woodcraft Magazine annually.

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800-535-4486

Location:

1177 Rosemar Rd,
Parkersburg
West Virginia
26105

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KO From KENT

Verified Reviewer

“Since getting the ACS Master Kit, I've seen what's left of the set reduce down to only the table. I think the table still has some unique value, while it lasts, but everything else I wanted to replace. The track system itself seemed to be really neat offering larger version of what the Festool MFT/3 does at a more reasonable price overall. But it had several issues. But the track can't move out of the way easily. If you want to remove the track, you'll need to retune it when you put it back on. And the tuning process and brackets feel very poorly designed. I hated working with these things. So if you wanted to keep the track working without a load of work, the table would have to be mostly dedicated to the track, and it's harder to use as a work surface. Next, the track itself is fairly floppy. Which is to say it's a normal track but a very long run for the supports. I felt like I needed to leave something under the track when it was on just so it wasn't bowing all the time. When it use, I needed supports if I was cutting anything longer. This is like a normal guide track, but I also had to perform the side adjustments which actually required more thought than using a regular guide track. Finally, there were two questions with the squaring. First, you square the front of the track to the table against special dog hole pegs (I do like these pegs, to be fair). This seems great, but it uses pegs that push against the rubber strip and I was never comfortable that this was a completely square setup. I know that I could mess this up. On the other end, the flimsy built in parallel guides did almost nothing to ensure the back edge of the wood was parallel to the track. The plastic connector between the two guides was mostly useless. And even the distance guides on the table would not stay in place well at all. I gave up on using these almost immediately and moved to using something based on the dog holes in the the table. Next, the track saw track is just not as good as other saws. I was never super happy with the cleanliness of the cut, and having used a Makita and Festool track saw since I can say it's much less easy to use than any of those. Adjusting the depth in particular is much worse. I wanted to replace it, which killed any remaining use of the track itself and left me with just the table. The major positive is the tabletop, which has a decent collection of dog holes to work with on a grid. I think some people might find it a little large, but it's designed for working with sheets, not as a regular workbench. Unfortunately the table does not have wide sides for clamping with the metal rail. If you clamp on the edge, you'll need to be accurate. I haven't been able to get much use out of the rail, it's not a great track size for anything but the track pieces. The aluminum legs are also not nearly as stable as I would want from a table, not something you would want to chisel on. The table is designed to move, but I found the process of transforming it into a rolling cart was a pain in the butt, the kind of activity where you keep trying to avoid getting pinched and harder than folding a normal table. And now one of the handles has sheared off, so I won't be rolling it anymore that way. The wheels and handles also get in the way of using the dog holes at either end of the table. I think there's an end of life in sight for this table now, if not because a replacement is built then because the table's aluminum fails in one of the weak spots. Maybe I can repurpose the top then to get more life out of it, but it has been a rapid decline for this table. If you have the space and use the table for only one use, and you can get the squaring right, you could use it for breaking down larger panels. The dream seems good. But I couldn't get there.”

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Posted 3 years ago