Thread: Your Opinion on Jointmaker Pro from Bridge City

Interesting. I have been humming and hawwing about my limited space and how best to consume my "space budget". I'm also in the category of people who mainly get time at night when loud power tools are just not an option.

I have a practical problem that I have a super-active young child at home who gets into everything and for that, together with space reasons, a table saw is out of the question.

I have though spent a lot (time and $) getting a good setup with a Festool MFT/3 with a track saw, which I use effectively as an edge jointer and small capacity mitre-saw. I also throw down rigid foam boards on the car space and 2 x 1400mm tracks connected together to cut down large sheet goods. One of my concerns would be that much of the functionality would be duplicated with this.

Those compound mitre joints though...

The way I think about this device (I've watched the two [I think] Stumpy Nubs vids on it) is that it's an ultra accurate way to make small parts, because it's basically a mounted japanese saw blade with a moving workpiece/table. One of the things he made with it is finely kerfed "flexible" timber strips. Hard to do with any other tool, imho - well at least at the scale this was.

Do I think it's a great idea? Yes. Do I think it's for everything and everyone? No. Would I buy one as my next purchase? No.

And @cgcc, I don't think you'd ever replace your MFT with this, in fact I see very little cross over.

I guess my answer would be, it's a jig for doing specialised & small-scale stuff (like box-making), but if you are into furniture, I can't see it being of the slightest use other than maybe adding a few decorative bits & bobs. If you want an alternative to a tablesaw, it's hard to beat a couple of decent handsaws & a pair of saw horses. But these would be pretty much duplicating your Festool, and you need to justify that purchase.....
Cheers,

poundy: Yes, agreed - looking at more videos you're right, I see even less crossover than I initially thought. What I was thinking was cross-cutting narrow stock (with a tracksaw the pieces can fly).

Having watched more videos it does seem a little like a solution in search of a problem.

The only thing I can see this being useful in terms of furniture, is perhaps Japanese-style joinery on softwoods for things like table legs, support pieces, and breadboard ends.

If it was a few hundred bucks and the blades could be re-sharpened I'd be properly interested.

yeah @cgcc, on any larger saw (any kind), smaller parts become more projectile than we'd all like There are a myriad of ways to control and reduce that, depending on the saw in question, eg cross-cut sled and using a small hold-down stick on the part top, AKA pencil, when using a table saw.... Still, the whole scale of this thing is much more precise than a 3mm table saw blade, so when that's an issue you want to solve, this is a contender.

Actually poundy you've just made me think of one good use - might be good for sawing a rare or expensive wood (eg a little block of ebony) into veneer pieces, pieces for a spline or inlay strips). Presumably you could clamp the part to a sacrificial block to hold it while you effectively slice it like a mandolin.

But again, a big bloody expense and something that will take up a lot of room for an awfully specific task.

Ive seen quite a few kumiko makers use these.

It has been a plan of mine to make one using a jsaw blade and a couple of CNC rails with those sliding bearings.

Doesn't need to be whizz bang, but it sure will make it quick doing some of the slicing.

An expensive hand-powered Triton which only cuts small parts. It is not for me.

Thepoplarshop on insta is documenting a homemade JM pro.