I have placed a number of posts concerning a recent project and why there was unexplained twisting and such. I could not figure it out for the life of me. Thought I had a solution and then that would be disproved. Until now. The jig was about 2 degrees off parallel with the clamping face laterally and 1.5 degrees of longitudinally.
How may FMT owners or other Leigh owners have had their tool WAY misalligned out of the box? It is obviously my fault for not fully checking how true the jig was. However, you shell out $800 for a small aluminum thing and you have certain expectations. So, I take the hit for not checking but I still feel Leigh should do a better job. After all, their manual says repeatedly “Precise factory settings” or in bold “should never need attention.“
Adding this little part. I have followed the manual on how to adjust the clamping fence’s parallel to the jig (Taking rotaion of the tenon/mortise out). I have adjusted it to the stops and the problem is not going away. The twist in the joint started to diminish, however, it stopped moving with the adjustments at a point just off of parallel. Any suggestions? I think I may have a bum FMT. Of course, garbage in, garbage out. I may just not be doing things right.
What are other people’s opinions? Just had to vent a little.
-John
Edited 5/14/2004 8:14 pm ET by John
Replies
John
Whilst I understand the unmoveable nature of your deadline and emphasise with your frustration, I cannot bring myself to symphasise with your problem.
1200 mortice and tenon joints is approaching factory scale production. The reason manufacturers make prototypes is to discover and iron out small problems and misalignments so that the production run, once started, runs smoothly. In your case you appear to have jumped into full scale production from the first tenon. It was only when you started assembling the 10 (?) chairs that you became aware of the problem.
Your FMT may be a dud, or it may be within specs. Questions that come to my mind are:
how square is your reference square?
how square is your working square?
was your timber exactly square?
did all the pieces have exactly the same cross section?
the FMT uses a router sub-base, I consider it a fairly large leap of faith to assume that attaching your router to the sub-base and then the sub-base to the jig will not require some tweaking to get the alignment exactly right. Afterall, Leigh Industries cannot influence how accurately the base plate on your router was machined.
Please don't take the above as personal criticism, or a thinly veiled implication that a poor workman blames his tools. It's meant more as a thought starter for others reading this thread.
May I wish you well and God speed for the next six months.
"how square is your reference square?"Square enough that I can determine 90 degrees within working tolerances."how square is your working square?"The Jig itself is as close to sqare as possible. Determined through the resulting joints themselves."was your timber exactly square?"Some is, some isn't. Milled it down to fix that."did all the pieces have exactly the same cross section?"Yes. Milled down to exact widths. This would only really change the center of the joint.
I am not looking for sympathy, mainly to vent and bring my situation to light to help other fledglings like myself. It is the first large scale venture I have undertaken and I assumed all the risks therein. As I said before I take the blame, I was cursing myself before cursing the tool. The tool doesn't make things, the woodworker does.
With that, the jig base itself is not alligned properly. There is no angular slanting of the joint anymore, that was taken out with some quick adjustments on the base zero stops. The problem is when the clamping face is not parallel with the side-to-side movement of the router along those nifty channels in the top. They give you a way to fix it, even though it is precision set to parallel. It is also pretty hard to mess up attaching a PC router directly to the mounting plate. Even then if the mounting plate was messed up, the result would be an off center joint or, maybe, an slant in the joints that is removed with adjustments in the jig.
The problem arises when you find out there is a lack of parallel and you cannot fully fix it. I can make a GREAT improvement in the problem with the parallel adjustment they give. However, the jig then hits upon stops and I cannot adjust it further. So I then have a rotation in my joints that I cannot fully remove causing a twisting in my work. Just looking for help from more experienced people who may have dealt with the same issues in Leigh products. Thank you for understanding my wish to help out other intermediate woodworks like myself in the process.
-John
Edited 5/15/2004 9:16 am ET by John
Not having used the FMT I don't know if inserting a thin triangular shim into the clamping system is possible or if it will take out the last bit of the out-of-parallel. Just a thought
I expect that you will have some time on your hands over the next few weeks. If so, could you post a review or detailed critique of the FMT based on your experisnces?
Ian
Hi John,
I have one and have not had your problems. Have you considered calling them? I once needed an explanation for one of their jigs and they were very helpful.
I see from your profile that you are in WA. Worst comes to worst have you thought of driving up to Vancouver (they are located in a suburb) with the thing and asking for a replacment?
Hope you get it solved.
Cheers,
Peter
Just got back from Vancouver this weekend actually. I have placed a call into them and left a message. I am sure they will be more than happy to help me out. Unfortunately, I don't know what they can do besides sending me a new one. Otherwise I am just hoping this happened before and the hinge the whole thing is on just needs a little attention. Wish me luck.
-John
It is my humble opinion the Jig shouldn't have needed any adjustment out of the box.
John shelled out big money for a premium product, and should have been able to expect damn-near perfection.
If we all start making excuses for these (high end) companies products, or accepting less than what we paid for, most companies will (eventually) let quality control slide, and the cost of decent tools will soar (further).
Having said that, it might have been smart to check the first few as was said before.
We all have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. :)
Ben
I purchased Leigh DT Jig some years ago. It was impossible to learn, hard to set up, and a complete waste of money.
That having been said, the company was great and followed through with customer service. No gripes there.
I just happen to hate their products.Regards,
Boris
"Sir, I may be drunk, but you're crazy, and I'll be sober tomorrow" -- WC Fields, "Its a Gift" 1934
Out of fairness, I note that I am on the other side of the Leigh table...
I bought a cheap Sears dovetail jig many years ago, and gave it away. I bought an inexpensive Delta dovetail jig a couple years ago and was not satisfied with the dovetails I cut (for example, it worked fine if the drawer sides were 3/4 inch thick, but not if they were 7/16!)
Then I bought the Leigh dovetail jig. I have only built about 20 drawers so far, in about 5 different designs, with both through and half blind dovetails. To my amazement every dovetail has come out perfectly the first time. Yes it is a complex jig. So despite being both an engineer and a male (one can't read words, the other won't ask for directions), I use the thick but excellent manual as a cheat-sheet (I can't bring myself to saying I actually read it). A couple weeks ago the jig enabled me to build four drawers, from milling the rough lumber to assembled, glued, and sanded, in one evening. I am pretty pleased.
I have been drooling over the FMT jig. If I ever get into more complex mortise and tenon joints (like chairs), I will probably buy that jig also. ________________________Charlie Plesums Austin, Texashttp://www.plesums.com/wood
Franz Klauz has a video in cutting dovetails. If you watch it twice, take a couple of notes on a small piece of paper, and I mean really small, you can go out to the shop and handcut dovetails in about an two hours. This includes watching the video twice.
The guy is absolutely amazing, and takes what I considered to be a very complex topic and one of the most difficult areas of woodworking and simplied it to the point of stupidity. Your wife could do this Dude.
You only need four tools: A cheap handsaw, a chisel, a pencil and a square or marking guage.
I wish I could apprentice under this guy for about a year. I haven't used a DT jig in 8 years.
Regards,
Boris
"Sir, I may be drunk, but you're crazy, and I'll be sober tomorrow" -- WC Fields, "Its a Gift" 1934
Just sent out the FMT today to Leigh. They said they will fix it and send it back.
I cannot say enough about how the jig works. I was litteraly making joints 30 minutes out of the box. The reason it took so long was trying to mount it to a board so I could clamp the thing down. The joints actually "POP" when you pull them apart. If you have to make a new joint, just mark your work and in 5 minutes your joint is done. Of course if you need to make multiples, it goes as fast as you can clamp and route. There is real simplicity in this thing, as well as accuracy. Of course it is a little heartbreaking opening up your $800 tool and realizing it is smaller than your mailbox. It is nice to make your own joints by hand, but the FMT takes the cake. To do one joint by hand it would take MAYBE 15 minutes on a good day. Now in 15 minutes I can have 6 full joints completed. Very nice. Buy it if you can.
-John
I also got one a few years ago and love it. Since purchased a new template and will probably be aquiring others. To each their own I guess.
Cheers,
Peter
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