Serious question about those 'perfect' dovetail jigs everyone loves

I was in a shop near Portland last fall and this old timer named Frank told me he's never used a jig in 40 years because "the machine makes you forget your hands." Am I crazy for thinking we lean too hard on router jigs and lose the skill?

3 comments

3 Comments

eva_moore1mo ago

Frank was dead right. I spent my first five years cutting dovetails by hand and once I tried a jig I realized I was just letting the tool do all the thinking for me. My joints came out cleaner but I had zero understanding of what made them work. That old timer's point about losing the skill hit me hard when I tried to do a repair on a vintage piece and couldn't even figure out the angles without my template. The machine really does take over. Have you ever gone back to hand cutting after using a jig for a while and felt completely lost?

beth_park1mo ago

It's the same with cooking from scratch versus using box mixes. You follow the box and the meal turns out fine, but you never learn how flavors actually work together.

charles7201mo ago

Man, that hits too close to home! I did the exact same thing with a router jig for box joints, thought I was some kind of genius until I had to cut a single dovetail for a drawer repair and ended up with something that looked like a beaver had chewed it out. The jig makes you feel like a pro until you're holding a chisel and realizing you forgot how to read the wood grain (you know, the actual skill part). It's like learning to drive with GPS and then having your battery die in the middle of nowhere.