JessEm Dowelling Jig

[Nic_the_Urchin]

Hi all,

Bought one of these recently - and… I’ve drilled double the amount of holes that I’ve needed to whilst figuring out how to use it with accuracy (frustrating). But one thing that has flummoxed me - I’ve been trying to drill a support piece between 2 shelves (for drawer runners) - so this piece should be central so there is equal spacing either side. But I’m using 18mm ply and the JessEm fence goes up in 2mm increments (so either 8 or 10mm) so the dowels aren’t central to the support piece… leaving me with unequal gaps when the piece is installed. I tried moving the centre line to account for this but kept getting it wrong.. must’ve mixed up the reference edge… or something. Either way it’s not very straightforward |(or quick) so what am I doing wrong? There must be a better way and I’m not seeing the woods for the trees in my frustrated haze….

Any advice appreciated.

Cheers

Nic

 

[johnnyb]

I'd stop....take a deep breath....put the tools away. Tomorrow endeavour to increase your knowledge and spacial reason around the jig. Mock up something the same and keep going until its sussed.

 

[Spectric]

Yes a really great doweling jig and I use mine to supplement my Dowelmax. The initial learning can be frustrating because you need to maintain the same reference faces and ensure parts are correctly orientated so they all assemble correctly, the reference face is the one you want flush. Now the Jessem relies on pencil lines based on the centre position of the jig, but all you need to remember is that your two sets of dowel hole paterns are a mirror image and do not need to be dead centre on the workpiece and this is where getting to grips with a reference system is important which the Dowelmax checkmark system is good to learn.

https://www.dowelmax.com/checkmark-system-concept/

This method is simply putting ticks on your reference faces and crosses or zeros on the mating faces so you always drill the right face and you aligned with the reference. As I said providing you position the jig in the same orientation for both work pieces then being central is not a major issue, what you need to think about is that you need to rotate the jig for each part so they are mirrored and rather than use a central line on the jig you can work from either end using a rule stop, again the exact measurement is not important proving you use the same distance.

It might help to watch a few videos,







and this one which also shows how to not use a tablesaw safely

 

[Nic_the_Urchin]

Thanks johnnyb I’ve done exactly that - good advice in this situation.

Spectric - thanks for your reply and the video links - I had watched a couple of them prior - but will watch them again. I felt like I had setup correctly - I’ve included a pic below to show my layout - the videos don’t cover this scenario I don’t think - so what am I missing? Is it just about adjusting the centre line on the shelf pieces (top and bottom) to account for the dowel offset from the centreline on the middle support piece?) or am I just being dumb? Cos I just wasn’t getting an even spacing …

Cheers nic

 

[Spectric]

@Nic_the_Urchin how are you getting on ? The one thing to bear in mind is that if you are still having issues then it is not the tool, that is more than capable and it is just getting ones head around the problem.

 

[Nic_the_Urchin]

Hey Spectric, I redid the holes today that were causing me issues - I guess I must’ve mismeasured - teach me to do something new and complicated at the end of a long day. It wasn’t perfect but was close enough - within 2mm of being equal spacing - so I think just more practice needed - probably was a mm out and the doubling of the error that occurs each side throws it off further. I’ll stick with it. Thanks!

 

[Nic_the_Urchin]

Btw the last video had me cringing when he was passing his hands over the tablesaw blade