Theoretically, you can make a track as long as you like by joining shorter tracks together. Most tracks have square ends that are suitable for joining, but it pays to double-check. Whenever joining tracks, use a reliable straightedge to ensure that they join straight and true before tightening down the connectors.

For most track saw cuts you need to go all the way through the material, which means anything underneath is also going to get cut. To protect workbenches and floors (and prevent serious damage to blades on concrete), get a sheet of rigid foam insulation. It acts as a solid, sturdy sacrificial base you can use repeatedly with no damage to your bench or blades.

Track saws already deliver arguably the cleanest cuts around. But some materials, such as laminate countertops or plywood with paper-thin veneer, are still prone to tearout and splintering. To help prevent this, before making a full-depth cut in the workpiece, do a shallow scoring cut about 1/16″ deep. Then, lower the blade to make the full cut.

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These systems, like the Kreg Accu-Cut kit, use an adapter plate matched to the supplied tracks. The adjustable plate accepts your circular saw and holds it onto the plate with a series of small adjustable clamps. Once mounted, your saw slides smoothly on the track just the same as a “real” track saw.

As long as we’re talking adapters, there also are adapters that extend the usefulness of a track saw system to routers and jigsaws. Some track saw brands offer adapters (Festool, for example, has track adapters for their own routers and jigsaws), but you’ll find plenty available from third-party sources.

Router adapters are the easiest to find, with many made specifically for particular router makes and models and compatible with the most popular tracks. Setup couldn’t be easier and requires only that you remove the existing baseplate and replace it with the adapter plate. Once secured, the router rides the track smoothly and in a perfectly straight line.

Jigsaw adapters aren’t quite as numerous, but it’s very easy to make your own. If your jigsaw is equipped with a removable plastic shoe, simply purchase an extra shoe to use in combination with an easier-to-find router adapter. A generic router adapter that’s flat and not shaped for a specific router brand works best.

You can see how I’ve tricked out my DeWALT jigsaw. I lined up the extra DeWALT shoe and just glued it in place atop the router adapter. Any glue or plastics will work fine for this task.

As with the router (and track saw, of course), the cut is perfectly straight every time.

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Again, this could be done on the table saw with smaller workpieces. But when the stock becomes exceptionally long or wide, it’s better for the work to be stationary and fully supported on a workbench or other surface. A regular circular saw used with a clamped guide is a possibility, but a track saw’s plunge action speeds the operation up considerably and delivers better cuts with less splintering.

The key is to set up an easy jig. Here, I’ve simply pin-nailed a pair of 3/4″-thick guides to a sheet of ply, spaced so my 3/4″-thick workpiece can slide smoothly between them, while the track has a nice, wide surface for support. With the workpiece lined up to the edge of the jig guide, I made a starting cut near the workpiece end that extends slightly across both guide pieces. This becomes the registration cut.

Now, without moving the workpiece in the jig, reset the track for the second cut at the desired spacing between the kerf cuts, ensuring that it’s parallel to that first cut. Make the second cut and let the saw spin down. Slide the workpiece forward until the new cut lines up with the registration cut and make another pass. Continue the cut/slide/ cut/slide process until the workpiece kerfs are complete.

The finished workpiece bends with little effort, and the outside surface of the curve is nice and smooth. Keep in mind that a tighter bend radius requires narrower spacing between the kerfs, while a larger radius can get away with wider kerf spacing.

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Once again, it’s easier to take the saw to the work, and while you could cut 45-degree joints with a circular saw, the accuracy of a track saw makes it the perfect tool for the job. We’ll demonstrate the process with a smaller workpiece here, but the same process works with almost any length workpiece.

Measure and mark the workpiece where you want the joint edge, and line up the track. As with all narrow track cuts, clamping the track is a good idea. Tilt the blade to make a 45-degree cut and cut across the workpiece on your marks.

Remove the workpiece from under the track and set it aside. Then, take the new offcut piece you just created, flip it around and arrange the track exactly along the angled edge you just cut. There was a thin, unavoidable kerf created by the first cut, but with the track lined up carefully against the angle of the original cut, the kerf at the joint isn’t enlarged, allowing for the closest grain match possible. You can see in the bottom left photo how the spalted grain continues from one piece to the other.

Once the two mitered pieces are mated, the waterfall effect can be stunning.

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Echoing the take-the-saw-to-the-work mantra, once the slab is supported on a bench or other work surface, there’s no wrangling at all during the cut. You may need to make the cut in two passes for slabs that exceed the saw’s maximum cutting depth.

Making the first cut is straightforward. As an example, let’s use a 2-1/2″-thick slab of pine for a bench seat project that will have a live edge in the front but a squared back edge. To cut the slab to width, first measure and mark the workpiece and set the track appropriately to cut that back edge. Don’t be tempted to do the first cut as deep as you can, but rather make both cuts fairly equal by setting the saw’s depth to a bit more than half the slab’s thickness.

Now, you could have drawn a cut line all the way around the slab, but there’s no need. Flip the slab over to expose the uncut side (the only juggling you have to do), then slip thin pieces of wood or other material snuggly into the exposed kerf on each end to act as registers for the cut. Slide the track’s cutting edge carefully up against the registers, and bingo, you’ve exactly matched the cut on the other side.

Make the second pass to complete the cut. If you’ve done this correctly, there should be very little or even no “seam” where the two cuts overlapped. A light sanding will remove this easily, leaving a cleanly cut edge.

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For the longest time, there was only one track saw brand out there. Festool invented the category in the early 1960s and then owned the market for decades. The company refined the tool in the early ’80s, adding a plunge-cut action to the tool as well as incorporating a trim strip on the track edge that minimizes splintering. It took more than 40 years, but other manufacturers caught on and finally began producing their own versions of the track saw in the early 2000s. Today, virtually every major tool brand has one or more models.

You could describe track saws as ordinary circular saws on steroids, but that doesn’t accurately convey how useful they can be. While circular saws — and table saws, of course — are the cutting champs, track saws can handle certain tasks better, safer, faster and more accurately. Let’s look at some of these ways.

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The trick here is to make the edge temporarily wider by clamping a straight piece of stock beside the edge to use as a sanding guide. This effectively doubles or triples the edge width, creating a more stable platform for supporting the sander.

Sometimes, especially for edge sanding, a powered sander isn’t the best choice. For smaller workpieces, the easier way to edge sand is using a simple trick I learned years ago. Head over to your table saw and lock down the rip fence. Now, slip a full sheet of sandpaper underneath the fence and hold it down from one side. Place the workpiece against the other side of the fence and rub it back and forth over the paper. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you’ll get a square edge with perfectly crisp corners.

For profiled edges, unless you have a powered contour sander, hand-sanding is the best bet. You can wrap small pieces of sandpaper around a dowel or other round object. Or use a set of contour sanding grips, like the ones available from Rockler.

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Always keep the sander moving without forcing it. This not only makes smoothing more uniform and allows dust to be evenly collected, but it also helps prevent scratching or digging in. Done correctly, a sander should glide lightly over the work.

In terms of feed speed, here’s a good rule of thumb: move a random orbit or orbital sander over the workpiece at no faster than about one foot per second.

Uneven panel surfaces and tabletop glue-ups may need special attention, and this is often where tilting the sander is tempting. Although possible to effectively level a panel with a random orbit sander, it’s time-consuming and invites error. Instead, this is a good place to call in a belt sander with its large, flat pad that more easily bridges high spots.

First, locate all the high spots. Use a raking light to show where light sneaks under a reliable straightedge. High spots will be dark, with light shining on each side. Use a pencil to mark the high spots as you move the straightedge over the surface.

Cut the speed on your belt sander way down, and sand diagonally over the high spots to remove the pencil marks. Stop frequently and recheck with your straightedge to monitor your leveling and find remaining high spots.

Once the high spots are leveled, sand with the grain to remove diagonal scratches. Again, keep the speed down and the sander moving, overlapping with each pass. The goal here is making a uniform surface, not finish sanding, so go with a light touch.

The last step is to recheck for high spots with your straightedge. Any remaining spots should be small. Hand-sanding with an extra- long sanding block works best to level these stragglers, followed by smoothing through all the grits with a finish sander.

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Even better is to replace the bag or canister with a direct hookup to a shop vacuum or dust-collection system. Adapters like Rockler’s Dust Right FlexiPort system are extremely helpful for connecting most sander models.

For finish-sanding or polishing, high speed is great. But for most other sanding chores, constantly running sanders at their top speed can prematurely wear out abrasives, unexpectedly over-sand delicate workpieces, overheat motors, raise vibration, cause the sander to dig in and even make the tool harder to control. All quality sanders have speed controls these days. Don’t neglect them.

Two other poor techniques go hand in hand. The first is the oh-so-tempting practice of tilting the sander on-edge to quickly level glue joints or joinery. Yes, it works, but the odds of a poor result are high. It’s deceptively easy to sand a depression into the material. It also retards the spinning mechanism of a random orbit sander, defeating the whole purpose, and it invites swirls and scratching. Do this a lot, and you’ll also wear out the mechanics that make random orbits possible.

For the same reasons, don’t force the sander down into the work. Too much pressure overstresses the motor, slows down the random orbit pattern and causes swirls and scratching. Excess heat shortens the life of sandpaper and encourages clogging. Instead, hold the sander tightly enough for control, but let the weight of your hand and the sander itself do the work.

All woodworkers know to “work through the grits” for a gradual smoothing, but it’s easy to skip the important step of cleaning the workpiece between grits. No matter how efficient your dust collection is, dust always adheres to the surface along with loosened grit. The next-higher grit simply grinds this all into the surface. Always brush — or better yet, vacuum — the surface thoroughly between grits.

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The three most useful abrasives for woodworkers are aluminum oxide, silicon carbide and ceramic.

Aluminum oxide is by far the most common material. It’s moderately priced, very friable and has a decentlifespan. You can’t go wrong making this type your go-to for day-to-day use. It’s also the most readily available due to its popularity.

Silicon carbide is a harder, sharper material that lasts longer than aluminum oxide. It’s often available in extremely high grits — I have some 2,000-grit in my shop — and it’s great for wet-sanding and rubbing out finishes. It’s also a bit more expensive.

Ceramic abrasive paper for woodworking is more recent. It’s very hard, and although somewhat less friable than the other two types, the grains remain sharp until depleted, making it incredibly tough and aggressive. It’s a bit pricey by comparison, but it easily lasts the longest of the three.

Sandpaper is either open- or closed-coat. Open-coat paper uses less grit, creating spaces between the grains that help prevent clogging or “loading.” It’s best for softwoods and other high-resin materials. Closed-coat is just the opposite, with the grains densely packed together. It’s best for harder, low-resin woods and for hand-sanding.

Speaking of longevity, it’s natural to want to use a disc or belt as long as possible. But overused sandpaper is an exercise in diminishing returns. Resin buildup, torn edges and dust holes and “bald” spots all lessen sandpaper’s effectiveness, leading to poor results that, maddeningly, take longer to achieve. Check your paper often, and discard paper sooner rather than later.

That said, if paper is still fairly new but clogging, extend its life by simply cleaning it. A stiff brush — an old toothbrush or even a soft wire brush — can remove a lot of buildup, while a gum cleaning block helps with more serious clogging.

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