Where quality counts for a lifetime!

Please visit our new website at EFWinspire.com !

Monday, March 15, 2010

Woodworking jigs don't have to be complicated!

I've been building some cabinets for a customer, and when I got to this stage I thought I would address the issue of jigs. Some of my jigs look like wooden robots, with clamps, stops, pins, and other gizmos sticking out to make them do what they should. However, as seen in these pictures, jigs can also be very simple. My goal here with the cabinets was to drill holes evenly spaced so that shelf pins could be installed and adjusted, as needed. I could have made a complex jig for this and drilled each hole with my router, but instead, I've made a jig out of a piece of peg board. Since each hole in peg board is 1" apart, this makes it easy to drill the proper holes with a drill. Hint: circle the holes you are using! Jigs can be simple.


2 comments:

Grover said...

I really like simple jigs. The nice thing about that one is it that it is indexable if you needed to keep going. Gonna have to still that Idea.

Rob Eisenmann said...

Yea, this worked out well. Sometimes people tend to over-think things and waste material and time.
However, the drawback here is that the peg board holes tend to get bigger the more they are used! But, you could simply cut another piece! Also, when I made this, I cut along a series of holes on each side to make sure everything was equal distant (ie: if I happened to flip it over somehow, I would still be on track for level). Gotta make it idiot proof, even for me! :)