Jig competition - late, late entry!

[Ian Dalziel]

John,
Theres absolutly no need to defend a super little jig like kregs, or the trend or others they all work great and they all have drawbacks, you are an experianced user of the Kreg and i was only pointing out that the jigs we made work in a different way and can accomodate different thicknesses of timber that was all.
Some people on the forum might not know that these Jigs are for 18mm thick timbers. i found that when building 15mm contiboard units that there was breakthrough but i overcame that with stopping short like you said but not everyone here has that experience.
Kreg proffesional jigs and even norms benchtop model work in a similar way to ours but a £1500 price tag you would need a lot of pocket holes to justify that.

regards
Ian

 

[Knot Competent]

Ian & Aragorn,
Thanks, that's now fully explained. Your jigs not only seem more versatile than the Kreg, but you've inspired me to attempt to make my own rather than shell out for what seems a very expensive commercial jig.
Could you also explain which screws you use, I'm confused by the variety of pitches and heads people seem to use. Or does their use differ with the material you're joining?

Regards, John

 

[johnelliott]

Ian & Aragorn,
Thanks, that's now fully explained. Your jigs not only seem more versatile than the Kreg, but you've inspired me to attempt to make my own rather than shell out for what seems a very expensive commercial jig.
Could you also explain which screws you use, I'm confused by the variety of pitches and heads people seem to use. Or does their use differ with the material you're joining?

Regards, John

Axminster do a jig, in a box complete with drill, depth stop and 3 and 6" driver bits plus 100 screws for £52.30, hardly very expensive.
Not much explaination required for the screws, if you are joining hardwood material 15mm plus in thickness then you need the proper pocket hole screws offered by Trend and a number of others. These are 7gauge and 1and a 1/4" long. They are also square drive which are superior for pocket hole applications. Shorter screws are available for 1/2 inch material, but you might want to use a different joining method. Also, I wouldn't personally use pocket screws for joining softwoods
John

 

[Ian Dalziel]

hi Knot competent,
I'm glad its inspired you to attempt to build one, the screws sizes i think john has given you an answer, i refered the £1500 price tag to Kregs proffesional setup not there there little jigs these are available from as little as £20 from screwfix although these are not Kregs.
the square head is the prefered screw for pocket screws because you are torquing up the screw at an angle and square drive screws still give you full contact around the head, if you used something like a philips head and you havent drilled the tapered very well then you are only getting partial torque around the head off the screw with possible slip off hence the square drive.
hope that made sense

regards
Ian

 

[Anonymous]

I'm with Chris on this. I also admire the beautiful jig making, but I really don't see the point, what do these machines do that a Kreg (or other make) pocket hole jig doesn't?

John

The point is they cost a fraction of the purchased jigs, you get to use the tools you already have rather than spending money on new ones, the quality is better than all but the more expensive shop purchased jigs, they are a satisfying project to make and every time you use them you will feel good about your OWN skill and enginuity.

And you can also include any extra features you dream up.

 

[Aragorn]

And you can also include any extra features you dream up.

...cup holder, CD player and the like :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

And you can also include any extra features you dream up.

...cup holder, CD player and the like :wink:

:lol: :lol: :lol: