woodcraft special a good buy?

[Alistair Hosie]

Hi I wonder if you could tell me I am interested in this but I am not sure if the will send to Scotland I just asked them A woodcraft advertisement are these any good and will there be probs shipping with the recent terrorist upheaval through air post I am not in a hurry and it could be shipped Alistair



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Tenoning Jig #144755
Price: $79.99
Sale: $59.99 Quantity:

[japcas]

Alistair I'm not sure if they are any good or not but it seems by the time that you pay the extra to get it shipped to you it would eat up any savings gained on the product. You might call them and see if they will ship it and how much it would cost though just to be sure.

[Alistair Hosie]

Your correct as usual japcas they want $90 bucks to deliver.Alistair

[Your Old Dog]

Here's a review of it Alistair and it seems like they liked it.

http://www.rd.com/americanwoodworker/article.do?siteId=2222&categoryId=7002&contentId=1121

[Rustybolt]

I made a couple of those out of some half inch Alum. Plate and a piece of six inch Alum angle. The angle was half an inch thick. On the face of the angle that held the work i drilled and reamed a series of holes for wooden dowel pins. The holes were spced so that the work could be held at 90 deg or 45deg or 22 1/2 deg. I used a c clamp to hold the work to the angle.

[pcarpenter]

Allistair-- I have one just like it with the Delta name on it. It is a big, heavy item and as such is pretty solid which helps when you are about to slide the end of a board, standing vertically, into a spinning blade

My take is this...it can be more work setting it up and tweaking it than it takes to make a few tennons using other methods. If all of your stock is cut *very* carefully to the same outside dimesion it works OK. If you have variation, it is frustrating. The trouble with the tennoning jig is that it places and dimensions the tennon off the outside of the workpiece. Any variation in the sizing of say a set of rails, for example ends up making for different size tennons and a lot of frustration.

I found that I prefer to just draw the tennon on the end, then use the fence on the bandsaw, I cut them close that way, by hand. No whirling blade and you can work very close to the blade and sneak right up on the line. I then take a good sharp shoulder plane and "clean up" the tennon until it just fits. Just a few strokes lets you hand fit the thing really nicely and each tennon fits its mortice like it was done by hand...because for the most part, it was.

Just my $.02. Everyone has their favorite way of doing things I guess.

Paul