Rail  Dog  Manual

Installation

After receiving your Rail Dogs you may need to use a wrench to loosen the bolt. Loosen the bolt about one turn and then slide the bolt head into the groove on the bottom of the rail. Make sure the lip on the Rail Dog is sitting inside the groove on the guide rail. Do this with both dogs. Decide which holes on the table top you wish to use (try to use holes that are slightly farther apart than the length of board being cut) and slide the dogs to that distance and install the guide rail onto the table. Allow the guide rail to sit flat on the bare table top and reach underneath the table to hand tighten the Rail Dogs. No need to go beyond hand tight and it is not recommended go beyond hand tight because it may damage the rail.

If your Rail Dogs fit the holes with a little bit of slop (such as when you have a newer table top that has 20.15 mm holes), push or “squeeze” the Rail Dogs towards each other before tightening. This will make the Dogs “center” to the sides of the holes and reduce the amount of slop. Think of it like 2 bolts, 1/4 inch diameter. If you center the bolts in the 20 mm holes, you will have lots of slop. If you push the bolts towards each other until they hit the edges of the holes, most of the slop will disappear since the bolts will center to the edges of the holes. Testing on my newer MFT table with the dogs separated the full length of the table, I measured slop at less than 1/128 of an inch.

You can now slowly raise the rail by pushing up on the dogs from underneath the table or by grasping the guide rail close to where the dogs are installed. Slide you work piece underneath the guide rail, align the work piece and lower the guide rail onto it. Make your cut and you are done.

It may help on shorter widths of cuts to install some scrap pieces of the same thickness as the workpiece under the extreme ends of the guide rail to avoid any bowing or tipping of the guide rail  and making deep cuts into your table top.


Hole Extensions

While testing I realized the Rail Dogs depend on using the holes in the table top. This reduces the maximum cutting lengths significantly (less than 22 inches). What is needed are 20 mm holes on the outside of the table, holes in the air. I started with some 2x2 lumber and cut 2 pieces to the same length as the width of the guide rail. Next is to add the Rail Dog hole. I went with 3/4 inch hole and sanded it to 20 mm which can take a couple minutes to sand. A 20 mm drill would speed things up. You can actually drill a 13/16 hole and it will work fine. If you turn the hole into an open slot, the rail can swing up. I drilled 2 holes for 5/16 inch T Slot bolts to mount the block on the MFT side profile. I'm using 2 bolts to keep the 2x2 parallel with the rail. You could get away with using only 1 bolt.


The only problem with the 2x2 blocks are they sit much lower than the table top. To fully utilize the Rail Dogs, I need something sitting flush with the table top. I experimented with one 4x4 block. The Rail Dog only needs 1/2 - 1 inch of wood to seat good, so I cut off the rest of the block under the Rail Dog hole. Next, my T slot bolts weren't long enough to fit through a 4x4 block, so I cut out for that. With the 4x4 extra depth, I can mount it flush to the table top. With one block and using my original 2x2 Hole Extension on the rear, I increased cutting capacity to 33 1/2 inches. Using two of these 4x4 blocks should easily bring it up to 36 inches or 54 inches on the long side of the table.

Here you can see the Rail Dog installed on the Guide Rail.
Here you get a side view of the set up before cutting a 2x4.
Here is the underneath of the of the MFT table where you can see the Rail Dog poking through. It is easier to tighten or move the Rail Dogs by grabbing it here.
Here is a setup getting ready to cut 3/4 inch melamine board. You can see I still have my MFT Guide rail installed and I’m using a second rail.
Closer view of last picture. You can see the (polished aluminum) Qwas Dogs being used to align the board.