Thread: EurekaZone EZ Smart Guide System - A cheaper way

Can you make one for a router and post a photo for us?

Yowie

What a great idea. I've been hand planing a whole bunch (25) of old rough sawn, cupped and bowed studs to use as a workbench top. I don't mind the planing but when you have 5mm of bow to get rid of, it soon becomes just hard work.

When I saw the Smart Guide, I thought, gee that looks like a handy jig until I saw the price. The photo that you posted shows just how simple it can be.

John

I used a bit of masonite for the bit the saw slides on, it doesn't use up as much of the saw's cutting depth. It's a great idea needing another airing! Cheers Graeme

It is an excellent and well known jig, not sure who published it first but well done for revisiting this.

I also have a few that I used to use before buying the triton.

One word of advice though, do not make it out of wood as it will not stay straight. Use MDF instead, you can get it in many sizes and thicknesses and usually it is already perfectly straight so you dont need to flatten the edge along which the saw abutts.

The jig can be modified to be even more useful if all you want is to make straight (ie 90 degree cuts)....

(1) if you glue a piece of MDF on the bottom perpendicular to the jig, you can use that to push against the edge of a board and make the cut. Provided the edge is flat, your cut will be a perfect 90 degrees all the time.

(2) for icing on the cake, if you rout a hole along the length of the jig, (on the opposite side to which the saw runs), then you can slide through clamps to quickly attach the jig to the workpiece.

Theres a lot more you can do with this simple idea. Using just a circular saw and this type of jig I did all the cutting for some cabinets I have built for storage on the side of the house.

The jig is very accurate and very useful if you dont own a tablesaw or a triton.

It featured a few years ago in FWW,"A Circular Saw in the Cabinet Shop" I think was the name of the article, but the article is now a pay for view.

It's fantastic in conjunction with a "sacrificial" table for cutting sheet materials. Now here's a pic I haven't posted for over a year!


Cheers,

P

Some make the jig double sided, one for the circ saw, and the other for the router with a particular bit so the edge stays accurate.

Welcome aboard yowie!


Cheers.................Sean

Originally Posted by yowie

After reading the review, well, looking at the pretty pictures at any rate, I was reminded of a jig in my shed that I found on a yank site a few years ago.
You get to cut perfectly straight lines with your power saw over any length you like, and is very cheap and easy to make. Take about 5 minutes.

You better than us. It takes us few years to design this thing.

1. You need a length of wood or metal that is straight and the length of the jig you want to make (two jigs are handy, one about 1200mm and one about 2500mm). It also has to be no thicker than the distance between the foot and the bottom of the motor of your power saw. Can be any width but about 50mm is good.

Make it from aluminum. From a good quality to extrude nice and keep it's tolerance withing .oo2":confused:

Make it to cut on both sides and provide a track on the center for bidirectional use.:confused:

You may need some special molds and few test runs to get it right.

Make sure the side tracks are just the right size for the plastic antichip edges.

the plastic edges must slide in and out without glue. they have to stay in place.

They have to provide pressure right next to the blade for clean cuts.

This way they can be used with all types of blades.

2. You need a peice of board the same length as the last peice and at least as wide as the foot of your power saw plus the width of the peice from (1). I found about 12mm thick is good too.

Then we must make a special base. Instead having 2-3 guides for all types of saws, we can have 2-3 bases. One for each saw.

Let's provide antichip inserts for clean cuts on both side of the saw blade.

Why not make some zero clearance inserts for free hand use?

3. Lay the peice from (1) ontop of the peice from (2) and flush with one edge and fix down (glues and screws).

4. With the foot of your power saw ontop of the wide peice, and running along the edge of the skinny peice, cut the edge off of the wide board.

Let's make two tracks on the base. One for straight and one for bevel. This way we don't need to make another guide for the bevel cuts.

5. Jig complete. Now you can clamp it to any board or what have you and get a perfectly straight cut every time

What about the narrow pieces of wood? Let's make two clamping tracks on the bottom of the guide this way we can secure the thinnest piece without the use of the tablesaw. .

Jig completed? Let's make this JIG to cut without any measurements. Let's make the repeaters. What about routing? hey, Why not make a manual CNC like routing system for all our routing needs?
Mortise, tenons, dadoes, whatever.
What about edge jointing? Just use the router kit for your hand held jointer.
Can we use this jig with a chain saw? We need to cut few logs from timr to time. Just use the same guide and the same router kit. Do we need another guide rail? How many guides we need?

Why not use the same jig?

Welcome to eurekazone.
your carpenter friend. Dino (the tool pimp.)

Originally Posted by YCF Dino

Jig completed? Let's make this JIG to cut without any measurements. Let's make the repeaters. What about routing? hey, Why not make a manual CNC like routing system for all our routing needs?
Mortise, tenons, dadoes, whatever.
What about edge jointing? Just use the router kit for your hand held jointer.
Can we use this jig with a chain saw? We need to cut few logs from timr to time. Just use the same guide and the same router kit. Do we need another guide rail? How many guides we need?

Why not use the same jig?

Welcome to wankerazone.
your carpenter friend. Dino (the tool pimp.)

Geeze give the bloke a fair go. He`s just giving his tip for a home made jig. And a good one at that... I for one would rather his for 5 bucks than yours for what ever

Just looking at the 16 threads you have posted - everyone of them you are flogging your product onto us.... you havnt yet had a general chat or a contrabution at ALL. Yes flog your stuff mercelessly, but dont pay out on someone with such ordinary sarcasm for offering an alternitave to yours:mad:

Somethings making me think Yowie and Dino are the same person!!! One to start to flog it AGAIN and the other to reply with how great the original stuff is.... If thats the case i will be boycotting all eeez silly guide systems and future posts

Originally Posted by YCF Dino

Dino (the tool.)

Hey Dino, some of us don't even own chainsaws... why do we need a jig that's compromised so we can use it with them?


P

It was perhaps a little imprudent of Yowie to include the complete company and product name of the guide system in the thread title, then give instructions for a "shop-made" jig- even though I agree it's a good one (I made a similar thing meself only last week)...

Dino may well be guilty of only posting to give his products a flogging (I wouldn't know) but by the same token he's got a right to defend his product when it's specifically mentioned. Under US copyright law, I believe, he even has an obligation to to do so. Two sides to every jig, er, story.

Plenty of room here to agree to disagree, I reckon...

Regards,
Rusty.

Rusty,

Good point. On the other hand, I don't think there's any negative message in the post, the Eureka Guide seems to be a good product, the home made version is a cheap product, which despite the post of Dino's can be made to work acceptably.

If Dino had made a few points politely instead of bagging the jig as some sort of copy of his product, which it isn't; I've had one for years before the EZ thing was available. (Maybe I should be up for royalties??)

OK the heading is unfortunate, inappropriate even, but a clever marketer may have taken the time to point out that the jig isn't a copy, and only goes so far. Maybe that's what Dino was trying to do, but doesn't realise what a sensitive bunch of petals we are.

Cheers,

P

Originally Posted by Lignum

Geeze give the bloke a fair go. He`s just giving his tip for a home made jig. And a good one at that... I for one would rather his for 5 bucks than yours for what ever

I'm trying to give a fair go to all in woodworking



Just looking at the 16 threads you have posted - everyone of them you are flogging your product onto us.... you havnt yet had a general chat or a contrabution at ALL. Yes flog your stuff mercelessly, but dont pay out on someone with such ordinary sarcasm for offering an alternitave to yours:mad:

I spend 25 years as a carpenter. Sarcasm to me is to see others cutting their hands every day just to cut a piece of wood and doing nothing about it. But you're right. 16 threads and we can't see it yet. What we see is the :confused: ...tool pimp.
i wished someone else offer a real alternitave to the problems that we solved ,so I don't have to become the :confused: ...tool pimp.

Somethings making me think Yowie and Dino are the same person!!! One to start to flog it AGAIN and the other to reply with how great the original stuff is.... If thats the case i will be boycotting all eeez silly guide systems and future posts

Yes. Yowie and Dino is one and the same. Both trying to find an alternitave. So, I can go now and you can boycot Yowie?
That would give you something to do.

YCF Dino.

Originally Posted by bitingmidge

If Dino had made a few points politely instead of bagging the jig as some sort of copy of his product, which it isn't; I've had one for years before the EZ thing was available. (Maybe I should be up for royalties??)

OK the heading is unfortunate, inappropriate even, but a clever marketer may have taken the time to point out that the jig isn't a copy, and only goes so far. Maybe that's what Dino was trying to do, but doesn't realise what a sensitive bunch of petals we are.

Fair call, BM.

(Darn, these fence pickets are pointy)!

Rusty.

Originally Posted by YCF Dino

Originally Posted by Lignum
Just looking at the 16 threads you have posted - everyone of them you are flogging your product onto us.... you havnt yet had a general chat or a contrabution at ALL. Yes flog your stuff mercelessly, but dont pay out on someone with such ordinary sarcasm for offering an alternitave to yours:mad:

I spend 25 years as a carpenter. Sarcasm to me is to see others cutting their hands every day just to cut a piece of wood and doing nothing about it So youv spent 25 years with morons.... in 15 years iv seen it 3 times. But you're right. 16 threads and we can't see it yet.See what! that your just a spiv What we see is the :confused: ...tool pimp.
i wished someone else offer a real alternitave to the problems that we solved ,so I don't have to become the :confused: ...tool pimp. So what was the problem that you have solved? cutting straight! Oh it was you that fixed that problem... Oh and next time you start a thread by pretending to be someone else dont use the same typeset as that of your product for the tread starter, its a bit of a give away


YCF Dino.

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