Vertical clamping stops

 The aluminium extrusion on the Festool MFT allows you to use the Festool (and similar) clamps to hold material vertically. There extrusion I've used doesn't have a wide enough groove, so I had to come up with another solution.

Here are my original prototypes. The design was simple enough: a "plate" that sat on the front of the rail with a piece of mdf above and below the rail to help secure it in place.

An M5 bolt and T-nut secure the stops to the track and a 20mm hole allows the the clamp to be used with the block.

When I tried to use them it became apparent that they needed to be wider so that the clamps worked effectively. The central hole simply didn't work, so I drilled out another hole nearer the edge and cut away a notch to allow the clamp to have more surface on which to bear.

The other problem was that the clamp would turn in my hand and that made using it tricky. I added a small block but that didn't really help. So I came up with another design.

This time I cut a groove in the back of the face plate. I also made the plate wider. I thinner cut a notch to allow for the slight inside curve of the clamp and then used a small piece of 6mm material (the main components are 18mm mdf) to prevent the clamps falling out the back of the groove and to limit any tilting of the block. Probably not necessary because the nut and bolt pull the plate securely onto the rail.

Another groove towards the top allows the clamp to be placed in two positions. The two blocks are made as a pair-left and right handed-and work really well.

Because of their design, these clamping blocks can be used as stop for other things used with the bench.