Porter Cable Omnijig

[Steven Bolton]

I am wondering if anyone has used the new, long awaited Porter Cable Omnijig?

A comparison to the Leigh D4R would be interesting.

Steve Bolton

[Brook Duerr]

I saw one today up close and personal at the St. Woodworking show. First off they had a bunch of them (Acme Tools Booth), and I think I heard the guy saying they were having a "show special" of $595! $595 OUCH! It came with a dust hood if you bought it at the show.

The box it comes in is huge. If you need a cremation casket, this box will do nicely. The jig is BIG. It takes up a large amount of space and is very deep (horizontally) and wide. It looks like a serious piece of woodworking equipment. Sitting attached to the side of a bench and looking at it naturally brings out the Tim Allen grunts.

Fundamentally it is a direct clone of the Leigh with some tweeks to get out from under Leigh's patents. The fingers are the exact same design at the Leigh D4, yet they are not cast, they are machined. In fact just about everything I could see was machined. Hence that is probably a lot to do with the high price. Having extensively used the Leigh jig and had problems (minor) with the D4's fingers I can see where the PC fingers would be nice. But the price would prevent me from plunking down that much $$$ when I can have the Leigh D4 and be just as happy.

The folks at Acme tools need to find a better demonstrator for their PC jig at their shows. The guy's joints were horrible. Not impressive at all. He really needed to practice with the jig some more in order to get better at fixing the minor things that can be fixed. It was not inspiring to plunk down that much money at a show if the joints were not coming out of the demonstration jig dead on perfect.

I am biased because I have done all I can to singlehandedly keep Leigh in business (or so my wife and friends say) but for my money,the Leigh does the same that the PC does and for far less $$$.

[John Michael]

Well, mine arrived today along with a free PC 691 router as part of the show special a member posted a while back. I won't have a chance to use it until I finish my new workbench though, by the looks of the 44" long box, the jig is going to be massive. I commend Delta/PC for actually packaging it well, unlike a drill press I had arrive a few months ago beat to hell and missing a casting.

As of late it seems the prices on these Omnijigs have risen, I paid $536 shipped, this roughly 1 month ago, that includes a free $150 router so the jig price will be roughly $400 once I sell the 691. I will let you know what I think of its performance in the weeks to come.

[Brook Duerr]

I may have heard the price wrong for the jig. But, both myself and the person I was at the show with thought we heard $595. If that is true that is very pricey. I would hope that the guy was saying $495 and we just heard him wrong. That would be better. Still pricey, but better than $595.

[Eric Haycraft]

I don't have a d4r, but do have a Leigh superjig and the new omnijig. No question that the omnijig is far superior to the superjig. I suspect that it blows away the d4r also, but can't confirm that in person. The router support is much much better than the VRS that Leigh offers also.
It can still be had for 499 at some websites, but most have raised it to around 599 now. After unpacking it, I can see why it would fetch 600 bucks, it is one massive piece of machinery.
Here was my gloat when I got it:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=774688&highlight=77240#post774688

[Scott Ricks]

Mine arrived earlier this week. As previously described, it is massive. Packaging was outstanding. The DVD which stars Norm is clear and informative. I ordered mine from Redmond and it came with the free router as well. Overall, the unit looks very nice and well built. I will not have a chance to use it until I finish my new shop (1 1/2 mths away) so I look forward to John's feedback.

[Steven Bolton]

Has anyone had a chance to use the new Omnijig yet? Thoughts?

Steve Bolton

[Johnny Kleso]

Leigh has their new jigs and are about $100 cheaper than the D4R..

[Ron Bontz]

I have not used the new omnijig but spoke to the demonstrator at the St. Louis Woodworking show, (Feb.) for several minutes about the jig. As I understand it, at the time they did not make all the templates for the jig yet. He stated they Portercable/BD were working on incorporating the functions of the Leigh FMT into the omnijig as well as other templates and wanted to keep the total price down around $1,000.00 for the works. I must admit, I have the older omnijig (7216) with all but one template and have never used it. I have always used my Leigh D4. I still don't have the FMT but I would think that if Porter cable is able to do what was said... Then the new omnijig might be the way to go after all the bucks are counted. I have been a Porter Cable fan for a long time but until I see something more definitive I will keep using my Leigh D4.

[Aaron Beaver]

Been waiting to see if someone would post a review on this jig, maybe after its been out longer and someone has had a chance to play with it. I was hoping John Lucas would get one and give a review on his site.

[Eric Haycraft]

I have the new omnijig at home and really like it. I also have a Leigh superjig that I will probably sell soon. There is really no comparison between the super and the omni. The super gets the job done, but the omni is so much easier to use and produces great results fairly easily. Also, with the omni, it stores all of your settings for you, so the ron popeil 'set it and forget it' quote comes to mind. Personally, if in the market for a mid level jig, I would tell people to get the leigh superjig because it is pretty nice. Top of the line and they should go with the PC. The extra large work surface is nice to use for keeping things straight and perpendicular and greatly reduce the chance of messing up a joint.

[John Lopez]

Omnijig owners, would you please post your first impressions after having used it, and maybe some pictures of your initial results with this jig. I am considering purchasing one and your input would be greatly appreciated.:)

Thanks

[Steven Bolton]

Eric, have you made anything with your omnijig yet? Do you have to buy a ton of accessories.

Thanks

Steve Bolton

[Eric Haycraft]

As long as you stick with standard thickness stock, there isn't a big need to buy accessories. There is a sliding tapered dovetail template that looks neat, but I won't get that until there is an actual need. There is also an expensive adjustable template for tiny dovetails. The only accessory that I have purchased so far is the dust hood and it set me back like 30 bucks. I would recommend getting it because it works quite well. There may be a need for more setting blocks in the future, but those are fairly cheap compared to templates.

I have made quite a few test joints in single pass half blind mode. After a little tweaking of the factory settings, they came out excellent. Superb really. Perfect 90 degree with no gap anywhere. Since I have it dialed in now, I don't have any fear of just putting the final piece in and making my cuts without testing on scrap first. The jig stores all settings, so there isn't really a need after the initial adjustments are made.

I am just getting into the hobby, so I haven't used it a ton yet. I am currently making what could be described as a simple jewelry box right now that has my first attempt at variable spaced half blinds. Those didn't turn out well mainly because I don't have it dialed in very well...they came out too tight and I had to chisel them to size. In other words, operator error. My main problem there was that I did my test joints in soft pine and the real thing in purpleheart, so where the pine had plenty of give to make it fit, the purpleheart didn't. (they looked great in pine, if that is any consolation)

Eric

[Greg Crawford]

I work part time at the local Woodcraft store, and the PC guys came in and demo'd the unit last week. I've never used any dovetail jig, but was the "fortunate" one that got to un-pack the first unit and assemble it for display several weeks ago. It appeared very complicated and the instruction book didn't seem very helpful, so I was really looking forward to the demo.

One of the customers at the demo also owns the D4R, and made quite a few comments during the demo. His impression was that the Omni Jig would be much easier to change from one type of dovetail to another, eg. through to half blind. This is in part due to several sets of stops that simply clamp in, always registering in the same position, so after the initial setup for that particular set of stops, they will be the same. The changeover time was fast, with no additional squaring of the jig, and the half blind stops on the side were pre set by switching the stops left to right.

Some other features were;

it uses 1/2" shank bits

it has a rest in the front for the router to ride on, preventing tipping

the rest also deflects the chips so even without dust collection, most of the chips were directly beneath the front of the jig

it has a multitude of funnel looking stops for setting bit depth for the different cuts

all the instructions are printed on the different parts and color coded

After seeing it in operation, it cleared up the mystery of what all the pieces did and what the colors meant. The PC guys said the best way to get going was to watch the DVD and then go make some practice cuts to find out how easy it really is.

It is a very expensive jig, but the customer with the D4R said he'd recoup the cost in setup time savings and bought one on the spot. In fact, we sold out.

If you are interested, I would suggest finding a demo somewhere that will be done by the PC staff. I'm pretty sure most, if not all, your questions will be answered. Also, don't forget to ask about the differences between the 16" and 24" jigs. They come with different accessories, and with the purchase of additional templates, the 16" can be almost as expensive as the 24" for the same job.

[Jim Kirkpatrick]

What I like about it is the machined guides where Leigh's are cast.

[Wayne Watling]

Here are pics of my first and second attempt at half blind dovetails and it was also my first attempt at anything to do with dovetails. I watched the DVD and read the manual a few times before attempting anything. After the first attempt I found that one of the stops needed a slight adjustment as it wasn't exactly 90 degs to the horizontal, the adjustment was quite easy. The joints were a little too tight and as yet I haven't figured out how to resolve that issue. The manual says to raise the router bit if the joint is too tight so I'll try that next time, once thats done I'm pretty much ready to start making my drawers for the new bench.
The clamping mechanisms seem to do the job of holding the work pieces down very nicely and are easy to use, the DC port is on order but it worked okay without it, all the dust ended up on the floor at my feet.

Wayne

First attempt:
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l227/woodworkingpics/Porter%20Cable%20Omnijig/blindDT1.jpg

Second attempt:
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l227/woodworkingpics/Porter%20Cable%20Omnijig/blindDT2.jpg

[Steven Bolton]

Thanks for the photos. Please send more. Do you know what degree the dovetail cutter is?

thanks.

Steve bolton

[Dennis Meek]

Wayne

Thanks for the pics. My omni is scheduled for delivery on Monday the 7th. I am very excited after seeing your pics.

Dennis

[Joe Spear]

The new Omnijig uses 7 degree dovetail bits.

[Wayne Watling]

In an earlier post I mentioned that the half blind dovetails were very tight, to the point that I had to pair them back with a chisel to get the joints to fit together. Well I have not been able to solve this issue despite talking to one of the PC tech support staff and doing exactly what he suggested which was what is mentioned in the manual. The manual says to raise the router bit a hair so I raise it 3/32", it made a small difference but manual pairing back of the inside edges of the tails was still required. If I were to raise the bit any further it would make the tails and pins too short for my liking. It might work better if the sides of the drawers were softwood but these ones are all beech.
Hopefully some of you can shed some light on this problem once you get at it.

The pins stand slightly proud of the drawer sides but that is a relatively easy fix, just requires a few turns of the stop (top left of jig near big black knob).

Apart from the main issue of tightness, its working very well and the joints look great.

Best,
Wayne

Right side of drawer face
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l227/woodworkingpics/Porter%20Cable%20Omnijig/DrawerRightSide.jpg

Left side
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l227/woodworkingpics/Porter%20Cable%20Omnijig/DrawerLeftSide.jpg

Inside of drawer
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l227/woodworkingpics/Porter%20Cable%20Omnijig/Insidecorners.jpg

Stop to get the parts flush
http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l227/woodworkingpics/Porter%20Cable%20Omnijig/OJStops.jpg

[Dennis Meek]

I just received my omijig today. Had to use the hand cart to get it to the shop as the shipping box was huge and hard to get a hold of. It weighs every ounce of 55 lbs out of the box. I am going to mount it permanently as I will surely hurt myself either stooping or bending over to lift it onto the bench.

The construction and quality of materials is exceptional. Hopefully I will get time before the weekend to make some dovetails.
A very nice jig.

Dennis