Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The purpose of a woodworking jig is to allow the user to make repeatable cuts. The key is each cut is the same. Not nearly the same, but exactly the same. A jig that allows movement of the wood or depends on eyeballing the cut in some way is not a good jig because the cuts will not be the same. I struggled for hours with this jig and could not make exacting cuts with it because of two major design flaws: 1) not clamping the wood sufficiently - the wood moves unless the clamps are super tight, and 2) not having a way to hold the wood in the exact same location time after time. The General Mortise and Tenon Jig is made pretty well; however, there is one flaw in its holding power. The internal clamps that hold the wood in place do not do the job. Even with these clamps twisted down very tightly the wood will move, especially on the tenon parts. If one were to glue sandpaper to the internal clamps or make them larger it might work; however, after paying this much for a jig I do not want to tweak it this way and that to make it work well. It should work well out of the box. The second design flaw revolves around how the user aligns the wood before cutting. The jig instructions tell you to mark each piece at the center of the cut. Then the user puts the wood into the jig and aligns it by sight on center lines on the jig. There is no stop to adjust so the wood goes into the same spot each time. No matter how careful I was the parts were never aligned exactly the same. There was at least a 1/32 difference in the alignment of the wood. Usually it was more, sometimes much more. My problem is I am 65 years old and even with my glasses and a lot of light the marks on the jig and the marks on my wood ended up misaligned. The key here is a lack of a stop. In addition, the stop for the depth of the wood is basically made for 1/2, 3/4, and one inch stock. It is not made for metric sizes (such as plywood). If the stock is slightly smaller or larger than standard sizing it is impossible to get the stock centered on the depth dimension. Even after numerous tries at alignment the stock was at least 1/32 off. The system just does not work. If your stock is exactly 3/4, 1/2 etc I think one could aline the depth dimension eventually. If your stock is off "standard" imperial sizes stand by for problems. The internal clamps were rather small, and the knobs one has to use to twist the clamps closed are small. My hands have arthritis and turning the small knobs was hard. To top that off one must tighten these knobs excessively to have a chance at holding the wood in place. There are two knobs for each clamp, and the user must tighten both over and over until both are REALLY tight. Tightening one seems to cause the other to need more tightening. With a playing card or two I probably could have brought the depth adjustment onto the exact center of the wood, thus solving the depth problem. Then I could have cut the mortise parts long and just cut off the excess to get an exact fit on the joint. By cutting the parts a little oversized I could simply bring the frame (or whatever) into square after it was constructed. But why am I paying $100 to build a frame that isn't right from the get go? Do I have to build every joint this way? The entire point of a jig, especially an expensive one, is to place the cuts in the same spot on the stock every time. Thus, the wood must be held against a stop, the clamping mechanisms must hold the wood tightly without me putting in extra effort to sandpaper the front of the clamps etc, and the jig should be easy to use. One must remember that a jig may have to help the user cut 20 or more joints on a single project. Any additional work to square up the joint or work out "minor" problems becomes a major headache. I can make a shop jig for next to nothing that accomplishes that much. When I start paying $100 plus for a jig it has to eliminate those problems completely. This jig fails to do that. The jig does have mostly well machined parts. The router bit and the template guides are very good. The little wrench made to tighten the template guide onto the router base could not be used on my router, but that was a small concern. The centering process for the router bit was very good I thought. The instructions are good enough if you read them over once or twice before starting. Why the internal clamps were not better is beyond me. Why make the faces of the clamps smooth? Why not make the screws advancing the clamps larger and make the knobs either larger or of a different design so they could be tightened without a problem? Why make the alignment lines so thick? If they were much finer it might be easier to align the wood correctly. Why not design in a stop for the wood parts so every cut will be the same? It would be so easy to make this jig a lot better. And I don't think the ideas I have set forth would cost all that much. Nonetheless, the jig does not pass muster. One star. AD2