Fine Woodworking recently ran a test on 15 dovetail jigs in their issue #187.
I can't improve on their report which they gave high praises for this jig, but I thought I could give my expierience using it.
First I am not a person who can read a book or instructions and understand it completely right from there (other than house blueprints). I am the type of person that if I am shown how to do something I can pretty much keep it in the memory bank forever....So I asked friend, neighbor and fellow FW member Keith July if he'd mind helping me go through the procedure on how to make this jig work. Thankfully he was available to help me out.
In the FWW article it says the instruction manual could be better, I agree but once you get through it it is very easy, fast and simple.
The one thing I didn't understand at first was the reason for a scrap piece...then I could see you want it to keep from tearout while making the joints. The jig has a built in guage to adjust router depth which was a great feature. The only fault of mine was that it was shipped with two router template guides of the same size, which for me was a easy fix. One phone call and a quick 15 minute drive to Johnsons workbench where my wife bought the jig and I was back in business.
I have a router dedicated to each bit, but it is so easy to set this up that you wouldn't need two routers....I got em for Christmas presents so I'll probably keep them as dedicated dovetail jig routers. I am also going to use a extra base cabinet I have to fix the jig permanently to and use the drawers to keep necesary items for this process.
Like I said it is quick, easy, and simple and once I got it in my head on how to set things up it was a breeze to start making dovetails of which I am well satisfied with the results.
I can't improve on their report which they gave high praises for this jig, but I thought I could give my expierience using it.
First I am not a person who can read a book or instructions and understand it completely right from there (other than house blueprints). I am the type of person that if I am shown how to do something I can pretty much keep it in the memory bank forever....So I asked friend, neighbor and fellow FW member Keith July if he'd mind helping me go through the procedure on how to make this jig work. Thankfully he was available to help me out.
In the FWW article it says the instruction manual could be better, I agree but once you get through it it is very easy, fast and simple.
The one thing I didn't understand at first was the reason for a scrap piece...then I could see you want it to keep from tearout while making the joints. The jig has a built in guage to adjust router depth which was a great feature. The only fault of mine was that it was shipped with two router template guides of the same size, which for me was a easy fix. One phone call and a quick 15 minute drive to Johnsons workbench where my wife bought the jig and I was back in business.
I have a router dedicated to each bit, but it is so easy to set this up that you wouldn't need two routers....I got em for Christmas presents so I'll probably keep them as dedicated dovetail jig routers. I am also going to use a extra base cabinet I have to fix the jig permanently to and use the drawers to keep necesary items for this process.
Like I said it is quick, easy, and simple and once I got it in my head on how to set things up it was a breeze to start making dovetails of which I am well satisfied with the results.