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Love 'em or Loathe 'em

Garno

Fellow
Joined
May 12, 2021
Posts
1,372
Location
Dronfield
First Name
Gary
Love 'em or loathe 'em jigs play such an important role in our pen making lives.

They have one thing to do and that is to make a particular chosen task easier to do.
Jigs are becoming more and more commercialised these days and companies pit their jigs against each other to win the lions share of the market.

For a company to pry our hard earned cash from our fingers they attempt to make the jigs they do look "The dog's b*" and try to sell un-needed add-ons with the jig.
The waters become clouded and we, as customers, start looking for the little add-ons that we will probably never use.

Most of us remember the good old days where we got a lump of wood and made our own jigs that ONLY does the job we want from them, we sat down and thought out what we wanted and worked out how to transfer our lump of wood into something that worked for us. I would wager that the majority of us, have at one time, seen something (a jig) online and thought how much you would like it.

After seeing something we like we try our hand at making it and that is where we have gone wrong, what we try to do is emulate what is already out there, we try to put all the threads and knobs on our homemade jig because we so much want it to look like the commercially available one, we are no longer just making a jig to do a job. We then spend hours making it, and convince ourselves we have done well and saved money. Whatever happened to the rough and ready jigs we once knew so well.

I have just made 2 very rough looking jigs, 1 for the drill press and 1 for my vise to hold the blank so I can easily remove the corners, they are 2 jigs that will get a lot of use and took me 5 mins to make, that 5 mins has saved me over £100 and lots of heartache. They only do what I have intended them to do and if I want something else from them I will make another jig to cover that need. The drill press jig can hold blanks over 3".

What are the easiest jigs you have made?
 

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flexi

Executive Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2014
Posts
6,159
Location
Maidstone
First Name
mark
I was an apprentice back in the 80s and my mentor had two pieces of 2"hardboard nailed in a cross. I had to ask as I knew he was not religious in any way. His reply came when we neared a door!
One leg of the cross was the center of a 44mm door, one was center of handles, the whole leg was the case height for a std mortice lock. One wing was for architrave joint and one for intersection...... Bloody clever:thinks::thinks:
 

Garno

Fellow
Joined
May 12, 2021
Posts
1,372
Location
Dronfield
First Name
Gary
I was an apprentice back in the 80s and my mentor had two pieces of 2"hardboard nailed in a cross. I had to ask as I knew he was not religious in any way. His reply came when we neared a door!
One leg of the cross was the center of a 44mm door, one was center of handles, the whole leg was the case height for a std mortice lock. One wing was for architrave joint and one for intersection...... Bloody clever:thinks::thinks:


The simplest is often the best, Sometimes it helps being useless at woodwork, so any more than 2 pieces of wood for a jig I rule it out :wink:
 

Dalboy

Executive Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2014
Posts
7,679
Location
Kent
First Name
Derek
I have made loads of jigs but not for pen turning OK I did make one. All of them had their uses one was for making track links for a half track model I made. If you are not familiar with it here is a photo.

There are over 300 parts in the tracks alone
 

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Garno

Fellow
Joined
May 12, 2021
Posts
1,372
Location
Dronfield
First Name
Gary
Wow that looks good [MENTION=449]Dalboy[/MENTION] Derek, how long did that take to make?
 

Dalboy

Executive Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2014
Posts
7,679
Location
Kent
First Name
Derek
Wow that looks good [MENTION=449]Dalboy[/MENTION] Derek, how long did that take to make?

It took 10months but I was then working so some evenings and weekends. Most of the models I make normally take about 2 to 4 months and I have made quite a few just three others. Check my u tube channel
 

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