I have purchased the new PC Omni jig for dovetail jigs and I am impressed with the level of customer service from PC to date. The manual is very good but it takes into account that one would be more familiar with woodworking machinery.
Unfortunately I do not fit that mold so well as I have been focused with lamination and bending of wood more so than joinery and carcass construction. I buy salvage old pieces of furniture from Goodwill and estate sales (I live in AZ..there is an abundance of elderly folks here like Florida) and rebuild various elements to create a modernized piece. Allows a study of joinery and craftsmanship. Just completed a solid oak roll top desk for my wife, massive desk for 99.00! She was so happy I got the Jig!!!
One other thing I bought this for and… here come the roars of laughs but..to learn to cut dovetails by hand by cutting the mate piece to the Omnijig cut one.
Can anyone give me some advice that could help me as I learn my new skill? It is a very large piece of equipment, as I bought the 24 inch model. The NY workshop guy Norm is in the supplied video. It is good but like his show he moves fast and assumes that viewer has above average skills. Thanks!
Kevin
Replies
bowmkr,
I'm of the opinion that the best way to learn your jig is to learn how to do them by hand first.
When I first started I bought a Taiwan dovetail jig on sale and played with it for a couple of days before good results were achieved....however, not mastered. I then bought 'The Complete Dovetail' book and it explained how dovetails work and the process steps to achieve good outcomes. That made using the jig much easier because I could see how the the jig simulated the manual tasks and, also, because of proper marking, helped me from getting confused. Lastly, it helped me diagnose problems and how to fix.
I never use the jig because most of my stuff is one or two drawers and I like tails that are narrower than a router will allow. The book I still refer to.
thank you located a copy on amazon. The approach makes a lot of sense, I never thought of it that way, I guess I got sucked inot thinking a jig costing almost 600 dollars would just cut them without much thought (at least they really want you to belive that!) I want to be able to use both (hand cut too) so I need to do the reverse as you suggest!
Regards
Kevin
BG... Good answer!
And then there is always practice on scrap wood!
I usually read the instructions several times before they sink in and I get a feel for what the author is saying. Instructional tapes are the same. Then it's just a matter of trial and error in dovetail world.
Isn't that true! always wanting to dig in there like a kid at Christmas I guess. I feel a bit foolish being sucked into superior marketing's ability to make you beleive it does everything and much easier..so easy that you are up and running from the start! I forgot these are one of the most complex joints to create accurately using machine or not! I do the re-read when first setting up a new machine, like a recent lathe I bought or a TS. Needs to be the same here. Focus on some exercises to use the jigs basic functions than forward is what I think you are saying..first we crawl then we walk ..that sort of thing.
Thanks for taking your time to write always appreciated
Kevin
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