Kreg v Jessem

[starcott]

I am looking for views from anyone who has experience of the Kreg and/or Jessem router table tops and fences. I am considering buying a table top and fence and making my own cabinet.

I have read a few comments on a forum, made several years ago, that some of the Jessem fences and tables were out of true. Has anyone found this to be the case recently?

The Kreg table top and fence together cost about £90 more than the equivalent Jessem versions. Are they that much better?

Are the fences easy to keep parallel to the mitre slot, as claimed in both the manufacturers' descriptions?

Any comments would be much appreciated.

John

 

[Recky33]

I have been using a Jessem fence for a good few years now and have never had a problem with it at all,
Its built like the proverbial Outhouse and has a good weight to it,
Like all non Incra fences you tap it for fine movement, usually pivoted from one end which means the chances of it ever being parallel to a mitre slot are slim.
As a general "use every day of your life" fence it should out live you

HTH

Allan

 

[merlin]

I have been using a Jessem set up now for a few years with a Dewalt 626 and I think it is a great piece of kit.
At first I had a small problem with the table seeming to not line up perfectly flat with the insert, I ended up fitting some small screws through the bottom of the insert into the actual table, that pulled the two together, the holes were already there so it was easy to do, I bought it second hand so maybe the original owner dident bother. The other thing I fitted was a no volt safety switch .
I have bought some bits directly from Jessem in Canada and they were a pleasure to deal with.
Merlin.

 

[skinee]

i

 

[ossieosborne]

Hi

I bought the Kreg table, fence and stand from Axy and was quite pleased with it all. The fence system is fairly straightforward to setup and once you have the N/S travel “friction” sorted it moves very freely. A cam lever locks the fence in position and there is a large locking knob at the opposite end that screws to prevent any deflection of the fence. This isn't by any means foolproof.

All was well until I had a bash at jointing on it by offsetting the outfeed split fence – a fairly clever system is used. I noticed that, instead of having nice straight sticks, they were actually bowed. Having returned the fence to its normal flat profile, I then put a long straight edge against the fence. Oh dear me. It turns out that the beefy extrusion isn’t straight! It veers off by about 2mm from the centre (where the cutter slot starts) to the end of the fence. No amount of trying to straighten it in a large record vice has worked, so I glued on two strips of very thin copper sheet. This will only be a temporary measure.

The other problem I have had with the table is with the insert plate. I seem to be forever having to level it. If the workpiece isn’t catching the insert plate then it’s catching table. The levelling system seems bomb proof enough but I think the insert plate isn’t robust enough to be completely stable.

Well that's my twopen'orth and my first post. :mrgreen:

Oz

 

[starcott]

Thank you for all those helpful comments.

From what is being said, I'm certainly been drawn towards the Jessem. How efficient is the dust extraction through the 2.5 inch outlet?

 

[Tenon]

Dust extraction is reasonably good, I hook up a 4 inch hose via an adapter. There are several ways of making it better, one is to add extraction underneath either by drilling through the mounting plate like Steve Maskery did, or by shrouding -off where the router meets the underside of the mounting plate. A simpler approach is by using the minimum size ring that the router bit can emerge through. I confess to laziness here leaving the wide ring in place suitable for roundover bits etc even when using smaller diameter bits which can lead to dust falling down onto the router.