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(groovy jazz music)
Marc:What I've got in front of me
here is Festool's new CMS router table.
As much as I'd like to think that the CMS stands
for "Cool Marc Spagnuolo,"
or maybe "Crazy Marc Spagnuolo,"
Festool insists that it's "Compact Modular System."
Either way it's a pretty awesome router table
and it's something that I wanted to show you.
I haven't had a whole lot of time with this unit myself.
I'm between shops and I'm actually in the middle of a
project build right now so I haven't had much time to
play with it so I can't really offer a comparative review
to other router tables out there but what I
can do is show you the different features.
I've got all the attachments,
everything you can possibly add on to this thing.
We'll do a few different operations,
basic router table operations,
and you could see how you can go from one thing to the next.
You get a close up look at some of the
components and parts and see how they work,
and then maybe you'll be in a position to decide for yourself
whether or not this is the right type of unit for your shop.
Clearly Festool's whole thing is about being portable.
Most of the Festool line is about being able to
be a road warrior and having top-of-the-line,
shop-quality tools at your disposal while on the road,
but these also lend themselves well to a shop environment.
I'm going to have to really test it out in
my shop and see how it works but so far
like everything Festool it's very well built.
The one overarching theme with all Festool stuff is the
fact that they design everything from top to bottom.
Unlike most router tables which are designed to fit with as
many other routers and other components as possible,
they're only worried about it working with Festool stuff.
They can from top to bottom design everything,
which basically in most cases means that you're
going to end up with better results, more accuracy
and tighter tolerances on most things.
It's defniitely something to consider.
If you're already in the Festool family of tools
this starts to make even more sense for you.
Let's jump right in. I've got everything attached here.
There's a great setup video online that you
could check out that Festool produced and
you could see how these things are setup.
I don't want to do that, I don't want to rehash that,
I just want to go into each operation
so you could see this thing in action.
Let's get to it.
I'm going to start with a basic roundover operation,
just a simple edge profile on this board.
To do that I need to get the fence out of the
way because I haven't put the bit in there yet.
Just unscrew these little knobs in the back
(clinking)
and the entire fence system moves out of the way.
You see this inner ring here?
This is basically your zero-clearance insert.
The system comes with multiple sizes
of course for different sized bits.
(pop) Pops out very easily and the new one pops in.
I think this is the one we're going to use because
my roundover bit should just fit nicely in there.
My collet is below the surface. I'll be honest,
I don't really even know for sure whether Festool
wants you to change the bits from above or below,
but I'm really lazy these days and I like
to make above-the-table adjustments.
I'll show you both ways in how it would work here.
First let's do the above the table.
I'm just going to raise the router
as high as it's going to go.
Put the bit into the collet.
And we'll start tightening it down.
Festool routers have that ratcheting action so underneath
the table I'm just putting my thumb on the ratchet arm.
I've got my wrench here, I'll start to tighten this bad boy up.
(clicking)
All right, that feels pretty secure.
I really have no problems at this point recommending
that you can do above-the-table adjustments on this.
Now let's say we wanted to get access to the router
from the underside and we want to lift the table up.
It's actually very easy to do.
Just unscrew these two little clips here.
This will be good too because I don't
have the dust collection currently set up.
It will give me an opportunity to do that as well.
You just lift it up.
You can grab the entire top and flip it upside down.
Now of course in this position you've
got easy access to make your bit changes.
You can also get a look at how the router is
held to the top plate with these little arms here.
Pretty straight forward.
What I'm going to do is install
the shroud for the dust collection.
That's already the bit that I want
so I can just flip it back over.
Drop the back in place first
and just put your fingers in these little holes here
so you don't pinch and drop it right down.
Then screwdriver again will lock everything in place.
Now I can pop my insert back in
(click)
and then raise the bit up.
(squeaking)
Now I'm just going to put the fence back in place,
you can see these holes here with the index lines.
That's where I'm aiming for.
Tighten up my little knobbies.
I'm just going to lift up the featherboard and the guard there.
Like any other router table I want to make
sure that my fence is in line with my bearing.
This is just a normal part of setup.
I'll just use a straight edge here.
I'll lock one end down and the other end can still
rotate so I'll wait until that's flush with the bearing.
(tapping)
Right there. Then tighten that side down.
We don't necessarily want to get too close to this bit but
I do want to show you that if you need to close this gap up
a little bit you can move these fences back and forth.
They both will move and the knobs just
tighten up on the back to hold them in place.
I'm just going to pull the featherboard and the guard down,
it will snap into place.
Let's move this guy forward.
You can loosen here to push down,
and this basically is acting as a downward featherboard,
which on most systems is an afterthought.
You usually have to install it
yourself or put something into a track.
Frankly I don't make as much use of this
type of feature as I probably should.
That really helps to make it a whole lot safer
and help you avoid the possibility of kickback.
The featherboard down, and we also have the
advantage of not only having a guard in place
here but this piece also acts as a featherboard.
I'm going to push that forward until
it applies pressure to the work piece.
Push down on this guy too to get a little
featherboard action and tighten it down here.
As you feed the work piece in you could see we're going to
have some featherboard action from the guard as well as some
downward featherboard action to hold it in place.
Pretty cool for that to be just built in to the system.
We've got two hoses to connect.
One is the larger hose which goes in the back of the fence.
The other is a smaller hose that connects
to the dust shroud on the router itself.
This Y-adapter connects the two hoses directly to the CT vac.
Let's make a roundover.
(driving percussive music)
(sawing)
This roundover looks pretty good but honestly I've got to
tell you that is not the thing that caught my eye.
The thing I'm looking at is the fact that there
isn't a speck of dust on this table anywhere.
By collecting in the fence behind the bit as well as
underneath using the plastic shroud of the router itself
it just is amazingly effective dust collection.
Frankly I've never had this clean of a
result with a router table ever.
One of the features that I am absolutely
thrilled to see is this sliding table.
Anybody who has worked on a table saw that has a
built in sliding table or a European-style saw,
you know how useful those things can be.
Not only that, they're incredibly accurate
because the way they're bolted to the saw,
it just makes across cuts look like a child's toy.
They're just incredible to use.
This is really bringing that same concept to the router table.
You've got a rail that attaches to the front of the
table and this sliding table that moves back and forth.
Of course that's not really going to be
that useful unless you have a fence on there.
You have a pretty standard, for Festool, miter gauge here.
This is a lot like the miter gauges that
you would see on their multi-function tables.
In fact it looks like the same thing to me.
You just bolt it on to the outside.
Tighten it down and it's ready to go.
Of course this is going to come in handy if you
need to route the end of a long board like this.
You really aren't goign to have much luck running
it across the bit this way because there's no support.
You need something behind that.
Either a scrap piece of wood or in this case a miter gauge.
Bring it nice and flush against the fence and now
you've got full support all the way through the cut.
I also envision this being incredibly helpful for
things like raised panels as you have to put a
panel on all four sides through a very large bit.
This is going to give you the kind of support that you
really need to make that process safe and pretty accurate.
The cut I'm going to do just because I'm limited in
the materials I have right now, we're just going to
do a nice end grain roundover on this piece.
Of course I'm looking here at what I might
be able to do with the included featherboards.
This guy here, the guard, it's really going to be in the way.
This wants to sit down on the surface here.
What I'm going to do is rotate that around and
instead of just keeping the featherboards out of
the way I think we can make use of the
vertical featherboard to help put pressure down.
It's the same thickness board so I'm
going to keep the same setting I had before.
Something is better than nothing, right?
Let's fire it up and make a cut.
(driving percussive music)
(sawing)
Now those of you who are familiar with the
CMS are probably laughing your butts off.
Clearly as I push this through if my hand is here
I can't go through a metal bar that's in my way.
Maybe this just isn't intended to be used
with the sliding table and the miter gauge.
I figured, "Hey, I've got a built in featherboard,
"let's give it a shot," but I found out the hard way that
I don't think that's ever what they intended me to do.
Either way if you move this out of the
way you shouldn't have any problems.
It was worth a shot.
How are the results?
Nice roundover, got no complaints there.
Dust collection once again is fantastic.
One thing I am noticing is the way this system is put together.
I don't know whether it's the rubber feet
of the table or the fact that this tabletop
is sitting on an absorbent material.
It's very stable, it feels really good.
There's no vibrations, which is something that in
a lot of router tables I tend to feel that.
When the router turns on you feel a bit of motion
in the table and vibration throughout the table.
This is deadened in that way,
which feels good when you're making the cut.
Just thought I'd mention it.
That's all good. I think we've pretty much
covered the miter sled and the sliding table.
Let's move on to doing a cut with a bearing-guided
bit using a dust shroud and a pivot point guide,
or at least Festool's version of that.
Notice the fence is removed again and I've got
this is fancy-schmancy guard dealywhacker doohicky.
I've got four holes here, I'm going to drop these right in.
Now three of the bolts are just these little guys.
You'll notice with a lot of this system it's toolless.
Once the initial setup is done everything
has a knob that you can turn.
You don't really need any specialized
tools to get things done.
Of course I've got this longer bolt,
and this one is for the guide.
Push that through.
I'm actually going to remove the guard here
just so that we can see what we're doing.
Now on most router tables you'll find that
they have an additional safety feature,
it's this little guide pin.
Typically there's a screw hole in the top,
you would attach it there. What that does is it allows
you to bring your work piece into the pin first
and then slowly make contact with your bit.
It just allows for a lot more control and a much safer cut
than going right into the bit and the bearing itself.
This is good, but what Festool came up with I think is better.
They have this plastic arm.
It's got a little angle bevel cut into the end
here so you can go right up against your bearing.
You tighten that in place and what's going to
happen is your work piece will ride against this,
go right into the bit and you
have full support the entire time.
There's no gap between the safety guide and the bit.
This is pretty darn cool.
I've never used it before, this will be my first time,
but I'm really intrigued with what they've come up with here.
Let's tighten everything down.
Make sure everything is in place.
I'm going to bring my plastic shroud,
that's for safety and for better dust collection.
Tighten that. You want that just above
the height of the work piece.
Right about there.
Now I can hook the dust collection up
and we can make that cut
(driving percussive music)
(sawing)
That is so simple but what a nice innovation,
I really like having the full support all the way through.
Through the entire cut there isn't a moment that you
feel like you're doing something even remotely dangerous.
Sometimes when you have that pin in place and there's
a gap there you still really have to be careful about
how you approach the corner where you go into the bit.
This way it's fully supported the entire way. Very cool.
I've got the fence system back in place because I want
to show you one more thing that I think is pretty cool.
Normally you would want your fence
halves in line with one another.
For most operations that's exactly what you're looking for,
but there are some things you do where
you might want to offset your fences.
For instance, if you don't have a jointer and you want
to use the router table to joint the surface or the
edge of a board, you would need to offset these fences.
Usually we use sacrificial fences or shims
or something to offset the two halves.
Well this is built in to the fence.
There's a knob in the back that has micro-adjustability.
You just rotate that knob and it pulls the fence back.
That gap can be adjusted to whatever operation you're doing.
The one that comes to mind is jointing for me,
but I'm sure there's other things where
something like that might come in handy.
It's nice that it's built in and you've got the
micro-adjustment knob built in to the system.
In summary, it's a pretty darn cool system.
The thing is, I haven't spend enough time with
it to really give you a critical review in how
it compares to other systems that we might be used to.
Things like my JessEm table,
that I've been using for years now.
I just need more time with it to be
able to offer an opinion like that.
That said I don't really see anything that this system can't do.
In fact with the accessories like the sliding table I see
a lot of great things that it can do that other systems can't.
Or you would need comparable addons.
I know some systems have a slider that you can
attach to the fence, which is pretty cool too.
Really, system is really good.
Dust collection on this is definitely the best
that I've seen so far on any router table
that I've ever had the pleasure of using.
This is typical Festool stuff.
It's very high end and it is not cheap.
I know one of the questions you're going to have
is should you buy it over a comparable system.
I can't answer that question for you.
I think it will satisfy all of your needs
in terms of functionality but like anything else Festool
it's really up to the individual to decide whether
or not it's worth the asking price.
It's very difficult more me to tell you
whether or not you should buy it,
but I do think it is a very capable system,
certainly up there with the best that I've seen.
Time will tell how it fares in my shop.
This will be set up, by the way, in the new
shop in addition to my other router table.
I need to be able to use them both to be
able to give you a good comparative opinion.
That's something that's going to take a little bit of time.
In the meantime I hope this video helped out.
If you're in the market for something like this
I hope just showing you its feature set gives
you an idea of what you can expect out of it.
I will say that the system, because it's
designed to be portable it's fairly light weight.
If you shake the table it's going to move.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's unstable.
Most of the time when I'm using my router table I'm not
shaking it I'm just running work pieces across it.
The advantage here is that if you do need to take this
thing on to the road or on to a job site it's going to
pack up and travel very easily like everything Festool.
Something to keep in mind.
For a shop woodworker you never really have to do that.
It is stable but it is on the standard Festool legs.
That may bother some people, I don't know,
it seems stable enough for me for any shop activity.
That's it guys. I hope this helps you out.
Like I said, we'll do a future update and let you know
how it fairs compared to other units out there.
Thanks for watching.
(upbeat jazz trombone)