hunggaur":3tiam7nk said:
A you cannot get them all the same and B it takes forever.
I disagree. I don't think I've ever done a piece requiring 100 M&Ts and a bandsaw
is quick and accurate. You just need the right jig. Coming soon to a woodworking magazine near you!
It also has the advantage of coping with bigger tenons (e.g. for the bottom rail of a front door) and longer workpieces (such as a window transom)
And as for speed, my understanding is that to go from one side of the tenon to the other you have to make test cuts and trial and error to get both the fit and position right. If that is incorrect then I apologise and I'll edit this post. Much better to build a jig where the fit is guaranteed to be Right First Time Every Time and the position can be tweaked with just one test cut, and the two positions of the cut can be made just by sliding between two predetermined points.
Wendal has built a very fancy one (it's fantastic, in the literal sense, I think) and I have a design which, whilst it may not look so sexy, does the job perfectly accurately with minimal setup and more safely than any other jig on the market. I think
mine is easier to set up than his, too. You can
measure his to a thou, but you can't easily
set it to a thou, it's a nudge here and a nudge there. Mine just fits the same as my sample, I don't need to know how thick it is.
Mine also does twin tenons just as easily.
hunggaur":3tiam7nk said:
These jigs are safe to use if used correctly, 1000's are sold each year in the UK and millions world wide. If in doubt just put a sliding box gaurd around the jig its not rocket science.
Now there I largely agree with you (well I don't know about 1000s, but I have no figures to argue there). The problem is that many people do NOT use them properly. They are not easy to guard and so the temptation is not to bother. That's why I try to build guarding into the design of my jigs right from the start.
I'm not trying to have a go at you here, hungaur, I'm sure your jigs are robust and do the job. But IMHO the basic design is flawed. Obsolete even. There are better, easier, quicker, safer ways to do the same job, even on a tablesaw.
These jigs do have one advantage over ones like Wendal's and mine, though. They are an out-of-the-box solution for people who don't want to make their own. I think on that we can agree.
Cheers
Steve
