New Product: - Festool Parallel Guide Page 1

To the right is the product shot of the new Festool Parallel Guide. I have been waiting for such a product for some time. The need for parallel and perpendicular guides are needed if you want to have parallel and perpendicular cuts in your cabinet and furniture making. If that statement seems too elementary, give me a chance to put some meaning behind it. It is more than just this product. But let me backup and start at the beginning. First, Elena and I will put the new product together.
	Great things come in little packages. You can pick which package I am referring to. The new Parallel Guide is very compact when packaged. I wish we could store it so easily. But, if it does all we are expecting, I will be happy to find a proper place to hang it.
Unpacked, the whole unit seems rather simple. Elena reads the instructions — if that is what they are. A four page piece that has 26 languages one of them English. Thankfully, there are some good illustrations, cause the written instructions are laughable in any language.
	The two pieces, at the left, are the parallel guides and the two shaped ones are attachments. We will cover the guides first.
It doesn't take much to figure out that the parallel guide slips smoothly into the guide rail

	On the underside of the guide rail assembly, there is this flip-down lever. When it is pressed up, it locks the parallel guide on the guide rail.
In addition to the flip-down lever, the round knob tightens the parallel guide from the top. Both tightening devices should be used for rock solid performance.
	. Elena slides the other parallel arm into the other end of the guide rail.
With a piece of white melamine to be cut installed between the two parallel guide arms, she is moving the arm so that it is snug up against the panel.
	She makes her cut. With the parallel arms installed on both sides of the work piece, she can know that her top and bottom sides are parallel to each other so this cut should be perpendicular. But that is theory and probably right more than not, but I look at parallel and perpendicular cuts a bit differently. In fact, my thinking is more of the table saw with a fence and a cross cut sled or miter gauge. See what I mean on the next page.