Originally Posted by
Bill Huber
Mike have you ever use a DowelMax or a Jessem jig?
The alignment is just not a problem at all, again that is the great thing about these jigs. You use a reference plate for all the holes and as long as you are using the same reference for all parts you will get a perfect aligned joint.
I have a dowel jig but not the DowelMax or Jessem. I can easily see that alignment top-to-bottom can be maintained with a jig. The jig I have will put the hole exactly in the middle of the wood (if that's what I want). The problem is how to get alignment of the holes along the edge (side-to-side). If one hole is drilled just a millimeter or two to the side of the corresponding hole in the other piece, things will not line up when you go to put the pieces together.
Let's say you use four dowels to edge join two pieces of plywood. Three of the hole pairs match up exactly, but one hole pair is off by two mm. When you go to put the two pieces of plywood together, they won't go together. You then have to drill the offending hole oversize or hammer the pieces together.
Compare that to a biscuit joiner or Domino. The alignment of the slots/mortises can be maintained from the reference surface (one face of the plywood), but the slots/mortises are wider than the biscuit or domino that goes into them. So when you go to put the two pieces of plywood together, you have some side to side slop to work with. You never have a situation where the pieces will not go together.
Also, I find the biscuit joiner or Domino a lot faster than the set-up of a dowel jig.
Mike
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