jigs jigs jigs

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Every time - Every single time - I am doing some box joints I get myself thinking about building a sophisticated jig. Ya know like with an adjustable width position post and a micro adjustable location.

And then I just grab a chunk of wood, cut a slot in it, bore-mic the slot, amble off over to the planar & whittle a little stick of wood till it just fits, glue it in: a little tap tap here and a tap tap there tighten the clamp, and Violla I'm slamming finger joints out like it was free.

And every time I'm done making the new jig I think to myself why on earth I'd want to go through all the bother and effort to build a fancy jig for some thing that I can make up fresh in less than ten minutes to suit my specific needs each time.

Today it was a 0.4375" wide slot.

I took maybe 5 - 8 minutes to make the simple purpose built jig and spent almost an hour puttering around thinking about building the fancy one.

[Jesse Cloud]

Hey Cliff,
Boy that rings true!! My philosophy is that anything that CAN be adjusted MUST be adjusted every darn time you use it. Sometimes its just faster to make it fresh.

I'll confess to one exception, I've probably put twice as much time into fooling with my mortising jig than I have actually using it for mortising.:p

I can build a perfectly square and flat crosscut sled in about half the time it takes to square up and flatted the one that's been dropped on the floor...:eek:

[Terry Sparks]

And every time I'm done making the new jig I think to myself why on earth I'd want to go through all the bother and effort to build a fancy jig for some thing that I can make up fresh in less than ten minutes to suit my specific needs each time.

Because making stuff is fun, even if you don't really need it?

But if you think about it for a moment, spending 30 minutes building an ajustable jig once, can be a time savings over building 5 throw away jigs later.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I can build a perfectly square and flat crosscut sled in about half the time it takes to square up and flatted the one that's been dropped on the floor...:eek:

lol I hear ya.

[Lee Koepke]

:D

i spent the good part of one saturday trying to make a hinge mortising jig ... that would be adjustable for several sizes of hinges .... it didnt work as well as i wanted, i scribed the location and chiseled out all of my hinges in no time at all .... thinking about something isnt always a waste, but boy did i feel dumb :D

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Because making stuff is fun, even if you don't really need it?

Well there is that.


But if you think about it for a moment, spending 30 minutes building an ajustable jig once, can be a time savings over building 5 throw away jigs later.

It'd have been way more given the sorts that I usually contemplate.

And then I gotta find a place to hang it.

[JayStPeter]

I build a new jig every time I want to make stopped dados with the router. During my shop deep cleaning I've been doing recently, I built a shelf to store some of my jigs on. There are about 5 jigs that all look about the same up there now. There seemed to be one buried in almost every corner.

[Mike Golka]

I built one like this a while back. It took about an hour to build and only takes a minute or two to adjust.
jigplans (http://www.songofthegreatlakes.com/adjustablejig.htm)

[Larry Fox]

I typically use the same pattern of looking for ANY way to do something EXCEPT building a jig for it. Generally speaking, I really really despise building jigs.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I built one like this a while back. It took about an hour to build and only takes a minute or two to adjust.
jigplans (http://www.songofthegreatlakes.com/adjustablejig.htm)

I saw that one. I believe some company is actually selling a hard ware kit with plans.

I was really liking the Guido Henn unit till I got to thinking about the pins he used to hold the work. There is no way they won't bend. No way at all. He'd need hardened steel set in to steel plate.

[Bill Wyko]

Sorry guys, I swear by my INCRA Jig. :D One on the table saw and one on the router and a sliding miter too.;)

[Lee Schierer]

I built one like this a while back. It took about an hour to build and only takes a minute or two to adjust.
jigplans (http://www.songofthegreatlakes.com/adjustablejig.htm)

Actually the basic design of that jig was from one of the wood working magazines a couple of years ago. Either "Wood" or "Workbench". It took about an hour to make if I recall correctly and it takes only a minute or so to get it adjusted. It has a replaceable backer piece so the tear out is eliminated.