Is one better then another? The prices sure vary.
Harbor Freight has em at 59. I see Deltas for 130 or so.
Does it matter so much for the occasional hobby project?
If so, what features should I look for.
Thank you
If you are looking at a DT jig with Fixed non adjustable fingers, most all will accomplish the same thing. A couple of things to look for though. Make sure that it will accept a wide enough board to make drawers as deep as you will want to build. Also. look closely at the knobs that tighten down on the clamp bar. Finger friendly is what you are looking for here as the bar has to be clamped tight against your board and sharp edged knobs tend to eat up your fingers. The better jigs will have a lever to push down to accomplish this.
On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 22:39:07 GMT, "trents32" brought forth from the murky depths:
Consider handcut dovies. The video is under $20.
"trents32" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.boeing.com:
Last year some time I bought the Harbor Freight one. It was on sale for $29 or $39. I don't remember which. I brought it home and set it up and started playing with it. What I found was nothing was square. It made real poor joints to start with. When I figured out that some of the problems were angles and stuff I took it apart and straightened some somethings, squared up a few others and now it makes much better dovetails. I would assume that for the extra $50.00 someone made sure all the parts of the Rockler one are straight and square.
I am now happy with mine.
Ok...those are good suggestions (ceptin for the hand cut one:).
I guess it would be worth a bit more to know Im getting something that works out of the box without a lot of didling, expecially on something I know little about.
Ill take a closer look at HF though, if on sale, given it seems to do the job, it still might be the way to go for me.
thanks again
That seems consistent. I took a chance on some HF Engineering Squares. Mine weren't square. Others wrote back to say they had had better luck with their HF squares.
Another approach seems to be "buy HF, if you live close to one so you can keep exchanging until you're satisfied"
I got a set of those too. 3 sizes for 5 or 6 bucks. made in india. at that price if you don't like them, use 'em for paperweights or something.
square is a relative thing. mine were accurate..... to about +/-
1/32". fine for general carpentry, but useless for machinery setup or fine work.someday I'll find a big enough crowbar to extract a real one from my wallet....
Bridger
I considered them, for about thirty seconds before buying a jig.
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