Thread: Wanting advise on Gifkin Jig

Welcome Hoppoz! The Gifkins jig is pretty cool. You will enjoy box making! It sounds like you are talking about both box work and larger drawer work. If this is the case, consider the maximum thickness of stock you will be working with for both finger and dovetail joints and the maximum width of stock. This will have a bearing on what templates you will want to choose.

Corey

And after that if you are not sure, contact Roger and I'm sure he'll point you in the right direction.

For general all round use, get an A10 and a B10 or B20 for large items like a blanket box.

The H series is suited to very small boxes.

The Gifkins website has a table showing the thickness of timber which can be dovetailed for each of the templates.

If you want box joints (finger joints) instead of dovetails, you will need that particular template too but I'd start out with just the dovetails and buy the extra goodies like variable spacers etc as you progress.

just buy the whole lot at once. Roger will probably give you a good discount for cash. he did for me.

If you do get the Gifkins, the template you get is determined by the thickness thimber you use. Look at the table on Roger's website.

If you decide to get 2 templates, consider the Leigh D1600. It can do through dovetails as the Gifkins can but can also do blind AND sliding dovetails standard out of the box. If you were to get two templates and one jig then you'd be better off financially getting a Leigh D1600.

I have both, and both are great but you can more with the Leigh.

The more I learn the more I realise that I don't know.

I have had a complication regarding what direction I should take.

I have been given an old Pentagon 10" table saw, unfortunately it doesn't have a fence or guide.

The Incra guides that have been suggested for incorporation into my Router table design can also be used on the table saw.

In looking into this, it appears that the incra guides can be used as jigs for making joints?

Have I missed something? What is other peoples experience with Incra fences/Jigs?

Hoppoz

Let me first, I don't know alot about Incra, however I have my Timbecon catalog so I'll give you a few prices.


From Timbecon, you are looking at between $500 and almost $900 for an Incra Jig, this is for the Dovetail Jig.

Then you have the Table Saw fence, for this you are looking at "from $950".

You can always get a fence from somewhere like Carbatec, I thought Timbecon but haven't been able to find one in their catalog though.

Call or email Carbatec and Timbecon and ask for a catalog - or look at their online catalogs.
http://www.carbatec.com.au/store/ind...ain_page=index
http://www.timbecon.com.au/


Cheers

Well I have both an Incra and a Gifkins so I feel that I'm in a position to advise here.

1. If you are thinking of the Incra, talk to Grahame at Woodwork Supplies.

www.woodworksupplies.com.au

2. The Incra is a good jig but you need special bits for it to work - as you do with a Gifkins. In both cases the angle of the dovetail bit is critical to a proper joint and they are different in both cases, so the Incra bits won't work in a Gifkins jig and vice versa.
Grahame sells the Whiteside bits for the Incra - American made and good quality.
Or you can get a CMT set from Carbatec.

3. I got the Incra Lite (around the mid 300 mark from memory) to act primarily as a nice fence for my router table. I ditched the Triton table because it's crappy and not flat. The bonus with the Incra is the ability to do many different types of joints like double dovetails, box joints, half blinds, and variable spaced versions of them. You need the Incra template set to do this. (about $60)

Even though the Incra is more versatile, the Gifkins is my prefered jig for Dovetails. It's much quicker, easier to use and very accurate.

Hoppoz, if you mean the Incra Miter Guages like the Incra 1000SE and others yes they will work on any table saw or router table using standard miter slots. I have the one I posted and it works very well, I use it to do all my miter work for boxes. Yes, you can add a sub fence to it and use it to make finger or box joints with it. There are lots of plans for miter guage box joints or for the router table as well.

Corey

Originally Posted by Gumby

1. If you are thinking of the Incra, talk to Grahame at Woodwork Supplies.

I have given Grahame a call and are expecting him to get back to me with details and prices shortly, I have a good feeling about the Incra system.

Thanks everyone for your advise I will keep you posted on my progress.

Hoppoz

Still waiting on Graham to get back to me?

Hoppoz

Maybe he's away

I have had some problems with my Incra lite jig, but it is probably the operator fault not the jig itself. I am thinking of moving to the Giftkins stuffs soon just to see the difference and because everyone who owns a G seems to love them.