Festool 494391 Hold Down Clamp

This is the best wood clamp I have ever used and should be the model for all other clamps.

Absolutely a worthwhile upgrade to my old 10" compound miter. So much better than the original screw clamp. The shank just barely fit into the left side but got caught on a chunk of flash on the right side. I cleaned up the flash on both sides with a dremel and now the clamp slides in an out perfectly. One caveat is that the clamp JUST BARELY clears the motor housing when mounted on the right side. No such issues when mounted on the left. Yea it's expensive but honestly worth it to me for the convenience and time saved over hundreds of cuts

This obviously comes with the Festool Kapex miter saw but I bought one years before I bought a Kapex for use on my Dewalt DWS780. It would only fit on the left side of the Dewalt so I used it side by side with the twist screw Dewalt work holder on the right side. The bottom line is that it was so vastly superior that I spent that time only using the Festool clamp unless I had no choice. It’s ability to go from fully l locked against the workpiece to fully raised enough to clear the fence in seconds makes it unmatched in usability.

The problem with lot of these clamps/safety devices is that it's cumbersome and slows you down. So you end up not using it. This is so easy to deploy and retract that you end up using it. It fits the DeWalt DW716XPS saw perfectly. You have to push a litter hard to get it to seat, then rotate it to the front. It adds accuracy and safety and costs you fractions of a second. What's to not like? And you tell your friends that you have a FesTool tool.

This is now my second clamp for my Kapex. Some might think it's over kill or a waste, but I like having a clamp on each side of the blade. It's more useful than you'd think, least for the stuff I do.As for the clamp, it's just an outstanding idea. Most miter saw clamps, are screw type that you have to screw up and down to loosen or tighten. They are a pain, and if something is a pain to use, there is a good chance it won't get used. I hardly ever use the one on my old saw. But these, quick and easy to set the height, pull down the lever and done. So frickin easy. And they hold very tightly.Some might say they are to expensive, but I am more than happy I bought two. Would recommend.

This clamp is awesome.I needed to move into my own shop and buy my own tools to make my Hard Maple Unit Blocks. I had been spoiled by the Festool Kapex KS 120 Sliding Compound Miter Saw in the shared shop I used to work in, but I didn't have $1300 to spend. So I bit the bullet and bought the closest thing I could find: the DEWALT DW717 10-Inch Double-Bevel Sliding Compound Miter-Saw.Almost as good, but the Dewalt screw down clamps were driving me crazy. They take so much longer to set and release than the Festool clamp's lever action. I make hard maple standard unit blocks for a living. This means that, at points throughout the day, I need to be able to move, set, cut, and remove small blocks of hard maple cut to a precision of 5/1000 of an inch. A fast clamp if a must, and the stock Dewalt screw-down miter saw clamps are not fast.However, I noticed that the base of the Dewalt miter saw clamps looked similar to the Festool Hold Down Clamp, so I took a risk and ordered my own Festool Hold Down Clamp for use on the Dewalt Miter Saw.Wow! It works!The two clamp stems are almost identical.The Dewalt DW717 Sliding Miter has almost identical anchor points to the Festool Kapex KS 120. The left-hand anchor point on the Dewalt DW717 is set a little further back limiting rotation for the Festool clamp, but the right-hand anchor point on the Dewalt DW717 is set back almost identically from the fence as the anchor points on the Festool Kapex KS 120 and both anchor points are about an 1/8" deeper, so you can either drop a bead in the hole or slightly lift the Festool Hold Down Clamp when you set the clamp.If you have to cut a lot of pieces fast, and have a Dewalt Miter Saw, you should think about buying this.All the best,Pepi AceboCarolina Pratt Unit Blocks

I use this with my Bosch GCM12SD miter saw. It is so much quicker than using the hold down that came with the saw. Great product.

Like all Festool products this clamp works perfectly. It's designed specifically for the Kapex and works exactly how you would want a hold down to work. But it has the same problems that all Festool products have, it's goofy colors, plastic construction, and outrageous price! I have several Festool tools (Kapex, TS 55 and guides), I keep coming back because they work so darn well, but when you hold them in your hand, and see that the materials they're made of are no nicer than any other professional level power tool, it's hard to justify the cost. I guess you pay for the superb engineering, because the materials just don't justify the cost. I don't recommend Festool to most folks, you have to be really OCD about performance to justify the cost. I definitely fall into that category, and I can barely justify it to myself.