Wasted $300 on a cheap dovetail jig that I should have skipped

I bought a no-name dovetail jig off Amazon last year because I wanted to save some cash. It said it would work with any router but the bushings never lined up right and the bits kept slipping. I spent 4 hours trying to get a single joint to fit and ended up with a pile of scrap wood. Finally I bought a Leigh jig for $200 more and had tight joints on my first try. That cheap jig went straight in the trash and I lost all the material too. Anyone else have a tool they wish they had just bought the good version of from the start?

1 comments

1 Comment

lily5741d ago

Oh man, the "pile of scrap wood" part hit way too close to home (I've been there more times than I care to admit). That 4 hours you spent fighting with the bushings and bits is exactly why I tell people to skip the cheap dovetail jigs entirely. I learned my lesson with a similar off-brand jig that promised "precision" but delivered nothing but splinters and frustration. The thing is, dovetail jigs are one of those tools where the clamping mechanism and guide system have to be dead on, and cheap ones just can't do that consistently. I ended up with a Leigh too (the D4R) and honestly, it hurt my wallet but I haven't looked back since. Sometimes you just gotta accept that the extra $200 is really paying for hours of your time not wasted.