There's a point in every guide-rail cut where the rail is finally where you want it, and then you have to clamp it. On a Festool-style rail, the clamps drop into the T-slot at the ends, right where the workpiece often can't reach or a parallel guide already sits. You shim, re-clamp, nudge the rail to clear a knob, and it has shifted off your line. On a jobsite, working off a floor or a wall, there's often nothing square for a clamp to bite at all.
The FS Rail Manus — FORG3D Edition is our answer to that. It's a complete clamp-free guide-rail workholding kit that holds the rail with vacuum instead of clamps, and it travels ready in a single Systainer³ S 76.
What it is
The Edition is built around a new pod called Manus. A vacuum pod grips the work surface from below, and a bracket and M5 rail insert tie the rail to that grip, so the rail is held right where you set it, with no clamp hardware in the cut line or the offcut. Manus is the FS Rail pod engineered to hold a rail with the same force as the bench-size Maximus pod, reproportioned to nest in an S 76 rather than scaled down, so the grip that usually lives on the bench is the one that travels.
Everything to run it is in the case, and every part comes from FORG3D:
-
Two Manus FS Rail pods
-
Two FS Rail brackets with M4 hardware
-
Four M5 rail inserts with M5 hardware
-
The Janus double-ended bench driver, stored in the fitout instead of a drawer
-
Linking 1/4 in PU tubing
-
A FORG3D Edition Systainer³ S 76 with a precision fitout
The one thing not in the box is a vacuum source. The pods run off a shop vacuum, a dust extractor, or a portable vacuum lifter.
Why we built it
The expensive part of a rail cut isn't the saw. It's the clamp: reseating it every time it lands where the work needs to be, or finding it has nowhere to bite at all. Vacuum removes the clamp from the cut. You set the rail on your line, engage the vacuum so it can't shift under the saw, cut, then release and move to the next mark. The surface stays clear the whole time.
The harder problem was making that hold travel. Maximus is the full-size FS Rail pod, but a pod proportioned for the bench doesn't drop into a small case. Manus is reproportioned to nest in the S 76 while holding with the same force, and its case carries the pods, the Janus driver, and the hardware together, so the road kit stops being the compromise version of the bench kit.
Running it
The two-pod kit covers standard rail lengths. For rails past roughly 1700 mm, add a pod; for single-operator work on a long rail, the Accessory Valve Kit lets you engage the center of the rail before locking the ends. On a vertical cut, a quick pull-test on your material confirms the hold before you commit.
What you can do with it
-
Cut clamp-free where clamps won't fit. Hold the rail on stock too narrow, too crowded, or too vertical for edge clamps.
-
Take the bench setup to the site. The pods that hold on the shop bench travel in the same case, packed and ready.
-
Grow it into the bench system. Start with the Edition, then add pods and Hub routing as the work asks for it.
-
Go fully mobile. Pair with a Nexus Baseplate and a Grabo-style lifter for rail holding with no shop vacuum tethered to it.
Where it fits in the larger system
FS Rail is the guide-rail arm of the SYS-GRP workholding system. If the bench pods hold your workpiece, FS Rail holds the tool that guides the cut, and both speak the same vacuum-and-insert language, so a kit bought to travel and a bench built to grow end up as one system.
Preorders open Saturday, August 8, at the Maine Woodworking Event, with the first units shipping in late September. The deep dive on fitting a bench pod's hold into a case-sized body, and the setup workflows, are right behind it.
The clamp was never the point. The cut is. Manus takes the clamp out of the way and lets the hold travel with you, bench to jobsite to a thousand miles down the road.
Your Workflow. Without Limits.
See where FS Rail sits in the full workholding system overview, and start from where your work lives.
Suggested internal links
-
SYS-GRP FS Rail Vacuum Pods — the individual Maximus and Hydraeus pods, sold as bundles
-
SYS-GRP Workholding System — the full system this Edition plugs into
-
FS Rail Vacuum Pod Guide & FAQ — rail compatibility and tested configurations