Side by Side Comparison of: General Tools & Instruments vs Drill Master vs POWERTEC

this item is excellente
and the support it's wonderful

Probably the Wise's money that I have ever spent, this jig makes making tenon and mortise joints so easy, I do believe that anybody who can read can make a perfect joint , I absolutely love this jig, I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS TO ANYBODY I KNOW......

takes some practice to get it right but worth the money. Buy some replacement bits. you'll need them.

Great time saver highly recommend. The price I got it for around Christmas was at least half or more off cost at hardware and wood working supply stores.

Love it. makes life a little easier

Best dovetail jig I have ever owned hands down also the easiest

I don't do a lot of dovetailing so I didn't want to spend 200-300 bucks on a jig. This one will work for me and maybe I'll be doing more dove work now that I have it.

20 minutes after opening the box, the drawer dovetails were completed and looks great. I had watched the YouTube videos before purchasing so I pretty much knew how to set up the jig. Great product!

I want to make some dovetail joints in a custom tool carrier but didn't want to spend a bundle. This will work just fine for the few joints I will make in my lifetime. The instructions are detailed enough for even a beginning woodworker to get a perfect joint from the first try.

Just started playing around with this jig, self teaching myself. Thank God for YouTube videos. I'm sure the full size jigs have their niche and probably work a little easier, but so far I believe this will work fine. You just have to utilize clamps to hold things down. Not too difficult. And the price difference makes this a nice choice.

I was sceptical when reading the on-line directions, before buying this product. The directions indicate ease in cutting the heads and tails. I have an expense and complicated dovetail jig (of which I just can't get the two pieces to work together), and thought to try this Pro Dovetailer as an alternative to 25 pages of instructions.This jig is simple to understand and operate. When I took an extra few minutes to re-read the very simple directions (just a few short pages-with good photo illustrations of each step), my first try was good.My second try (with a minor jig adjustment-as recommended and explained in the instructions) turned out a near perfect half-blind dovetail.I am so excited to be able to cut very accurate dovetails, in minutes, after a little setup adjustment. The jig is made of aluminum, and appears rugged enough to stand up to many years of use. Calibrations and adjustments are easy to understand and complete, and the jig is accurate, producing both half and full through dovetails. Also, it appears will make box joints-my next challenge. I recommend this product. It does what it claims (provided you read the directions). I go what I paid for-and more.

This works great for some types of projects, but it has size limitations. Mounting this is not easy .

Ok but only suited to particular size wood pieces.

does as stated

Very good

I am as green as it gets as far as cabinet making/wood working. I had to make a pair of linen cabinet doors being one of them was missing and there was no "standard size" I could have had them made for me but would have cost more than the General jig. I gave it 4 stars being I feel it is for the do it your self amateur that wants to do an occasional project. Don't expect to make perfect joints with this and do expect to practice with it to get your joints to fit fairly decent. then use an orbital sander to finish. my doors came out nice and I'm proud to say I made them myself and I own the tools to do it again.

Very good product! I wanted to see if I could teach myself how to dovetail. With the online support and classes, it was easy!

Good Product.

아주 조아요!!! very good!!!

bit broke after about 20 drawers, but the jig works great - need to buy the collars that support the jig.

I use this on my router table exclusively. I put down a piece (18x18) of sheet metal for a flat surface and put a 1/2" hole through it so only the bit sticks up. With the above setup, I get a fairly accurate and quick joint with very little set up. I use this for most of my drawers and gotta say it's pretty convenient.

I am a novice woodworker and have been trying many different methods of drawer joinery dados, rabbits, kreg jig etc. I always wanted to try dovetails but I really had no interest in making my own jig. I purchased this product and I love it! It creates perfect dovetails. One thing I found is that it worked best with softer wood like poplar or pine. When using hardwood plywood there was a lot off splintering. It could be that I need to adjust the router speed? Either way. I recommend this product!

good

Mortises that I cut on this machine were uniformly not parallel to the face of the wood. I carefully clamped the wood per the directions, but each 2" mortise was non-parallel by about 1/8 inch. Easily seen. The tenons, however, were parallel, so they didn't offset the problem with the mortises, and the faces of the two pieces of wood did not match up when joined.
Setup and directions were relatively straight forward. But for the problem with the mortises, I would have kept the machine and been satisfied.

Great tool, esay to use

not really as easy to use as assumed.

Before you get this in your hands it looks like a very useful thing to have. It is pretty good up to a point but the previous reviewers have made the important points. It IS difficult to line up the centers by eye. I've worked round this to a point by using a square across the jig because it makes it easier to see, then putting a stop into the jig to make sure my materials (especially for cutting the tenons) is REASONABLY in the same position every time. It also ensures that the work piece is perpendicular to the cut in ONE direction (but only one - see below.)

I have three other "complaints" one of which has already been mentioned several times where the clamping device is not really sufficiently accurate. I would also like to have seen the actual clamping plate increased in height (towards the top of the jig) to accommodate material smaller than 2" without the necessity for using spacers. The 1/2" clips supplied to be used as spacers are not good - difficult to attach and not really reliable. I use a 1/2" metal spacer bar to improve that.

My MAJOR issue is with the pieces to vary the length of the cuts. They are made of a plastic which is not sufficiently strong to resist the pressure from the Allen screw intended to hold it in place. This is specifically a problem when you're cutting a mortise or tenon which is not at the maximum or minimum length. If you tighten the screw so that it doesn't crush the plastic the adjustment piece is loose enough to move. If you tighten the screw sufficiently to prevent it moving it starts to deform the plastic. Also the plastic guides move from side to side within the track intended to hold it in position. It's simply not a tight enough fit. If these guides had been made in Aluminum and the dimensional fit improved to the track location they would have been far more effective and reliable.

The third issue (which MAY be solved by increasing the height of the clamping plate) is that the jig does not keep the work piece perpendicular in the front to back plane which is quite frustrating. I have had to resort to adding a piece to my work bench to correct this.

I've only done two projects with the jig, 36 mortises and tenons in Poplar, and the 1/4" bit included is already worn out.

On the whole, for the price, I do like the jig. Once you've got it set up it's obviously a LOT quicker than cutting the joints by hand. It takes quite a lot more setting up than I expected but compared to the cost of a drill press and mortising attachment this is a very inexpensive option. Unfortunately that cheapness is somewhat reflected in the performance. I think some fairly minor changes in the construction might correct some of these issues and turn it from a 3 star to a 5 star purchase. It's OK for the amateur / intermediate skill woodworker but it's not rally an option for any kind of larger scale production.

I'd recommend it to people at that level with the provisos regarding set up time and accuracy.

This product was defective, and after making several crooked joints, I contacted the manufacturer with pictures and they accepted it back. I replaced it with a more expensive model. This model does not make both joints at the same time, as some do, so it takes a little more time. If you have the patience it is an acceptable option to the more expensive products.

I was pretty excited to get this and then after the first use, I wasn't. The design is pretty flawed. It is not easy to clamp down. I bent the tail section in with just a harbor freight ratchet bar when I was cutting pins. Still can't get it back to square, so I'm having to move the router up and down a bit while cutting tails, which is pretty sketchy even with the two bearings. The material clamps inside of the jig are pretty inconvenient. Each clamp has two threaded rods. A couple turns on one, then a couple on the other, repeat until it's clamped. Also I wish there was rubber or something on it to keep the aluminum from driving into the work piece. It leaves a pretty good dent. Also, the knobs you tighten the work piece clamps with is inconvenient as well, due to the fact that the knobs you tighten on the back side of the jig do not always sit flush with the clamping surface. So it's basically sitting at an angle when you're routing unless you wan't to mega dent your work piece to get them sitting more true to the bottom of the jig.I'm sure that with a router table it is at least 75% better/easier, but unfortunately I don't have a router table, so that feature is useless to me.All in all, it works, it does what it says it does, and the pin side depth adjustments are accurate for the most part with a little adjustment here and there. I would just not recommend this piece to any of my buddies. It's a cool thing to have laying around the shop I guess, but I will be looking for a better replacement.I hope they address the issues, because the price point is good.

This is one of the cheaper jigs in Amazon and I now know why after using it. Aluminum bends, and jig requires many extra steps that are aleviated by better set ups.

Found it a bit difficult to use and cumbersome. It gets the job done at a cheap price versus others, but I ended up buying a Porter Cable dovetail jig. This jig is good for the occasional dovetail joint, but not if you are going to do many for a project. If you see yourself doing many dovetail joints, get a bigger jig to save yourself a LOT of time.

Pretty easy to use, but the supplied bit isn't so hot. The bearing came apart after 7 cuts. If you buy this make sure to have another bit on hand.

Basic and a little fiddly, an inexpensive addition that introduced me to doing dovetail joins.

Parts missing. Instructions missing

This takes lots of setup time and there is great room for error. I wish I could offer a suggestion for improvement to reduce the amount of trial and error but I can't. Metal knobs would be an improvement over the plastic ones.

The clamping system needs improving. The knobs a small and difficult to tighten.

Good tool saves time using drill press & chisel. Mortise clamps limited for narrow stock (under 2 inches). Had to shim 1 3/4 cradle stiles, very frustrating. Centering a hassle.

Purchased jig after reading advertisement which was my mistake. Quality of the jig is poor. Difficult to center and square wood on jig. Clamps are flimsy allowing wood movement during routing. Tenons have excess wood remaining that requires a good clean up. The comments in Woodsmith (vol. 34/ no.201 pg13.) were generous too say the least. "Knobs are cumbersome and too slow... Lack of reliable ray to square stock... alignment is difficult" etc. etc. I went to the trouble of modifying this jig as recommended in the article which was an improvement but still the jig is a challenge to use. To get it right it takes lots of patience and lots of practice cuts.

Built in clamps make it bow so it is nearly impossible to get a perfect dovetail from it.

This is a nice Idea, and I really wanted to like it.The problem is it's not square, plastic and metal parts that don't align properly, the plastic is warped. As a result the depth of the cut is not consistent. The plastic parts should have been made of metal. The design is nice, but the quality of manufacture is terrible.I've attached a photo of the issue.If you buy this, due to poor quality control, check for squareness in all dimensions, even the metal may be warped. Also keep in mind plastic expands and contracts far more than metal with temperature changes.

In theory this is a nice unit and design. I spent several hours trying to get this jig to give me acceptable results. Thoroughly reading the instructions, watching videos and endless test pieces, I could not get a sarisfactory dovetail joint. I returned this product and ordered the Porter Cable jig. In a matter of minutes, my second test piece had perfect dovetail joints, that I was able to replicate precisely. Do yourself a favor and buy the Porter Cable.

Seemed like a great jig, but about 3 cuts into it, one of the bearings broke on the bit. Without their specially designed bit, or a router with an equivalent collar and bushing set, the jig cannot be used.

Perhaps usefull as a speciality tool but if you are looking to do any quantity of dovetailing this is not the tool you are looking for.

The tenon part of the jig works great however, the mortise part of the jig does not work at all. The supplied bushing for the jig is larger than the what the jig will allow. The bushing will not even fit into the jig.

While the Jig is beautiful, the small nuts for adjustment stripped first time I tightened it. I only tried to use it once/ i bought it to work on a specific project. When I got to that point this jig became useless. Now i'm told thew return window closed on Jan 31st I ordered it Dec 19th, NO WARRANTY? That does not seem like Amazon, does it? I'm stuck with expensive, pretty, useless, junk!

i never write reviews but had to on this one. I saw the bad reviews and was wondering if it was just low skilled woodworkers not able to figure it out but it's crap. Takes forever to set up and configure. The tiny handles to turn to clamp the wood are a joke and do not hold anything. It's almost impossible to get square, there's nothing except a tiny piece to square off and I checked it and it was off. The plastic stops are terrible with the screws that barely hold. I started to make a homemade one at home before I bought this and gave up after a couple hours because I could not get it exact. Mine was closer than this one. Sending it back and I am sorry everyone that reviewed this before I will never not trust you again. We'll probably.

I received one of these jigs with one of the positioning arms so poorly placed that it could not be rotated into the measuring position.

Amazon promptly replaced it, but the replacement had a positioning arm that was 1.0 mm out of alignment with the other. Not as bad as the first one, but basically crudely assembled.

Besides that, it is almost impossible to align the tool to handle stock whose thickness is not exactly a multiple of 1/4", e.g., 3/4", 4/4", 5/4" up to 6/4". If you have stock that is, say, 13/16", 15/16", 1-1/6" etc., thick, you will be unable to center the stock in the jig. The adjustment "notches" are crude.

Plus, the "clamps" for holding the workpieces in place are flimsy. The whole jig is made of extruded aluminum.

This jig is a toy. Better to make your mortise and tenon joints by hand with saw and chisel, or else spend Big Bucks for a Leigh Super FMT or FMT Pro jig.... Or else, stick with hand-made chisel and hand-saw joints.

Kudos to Amazon for (a) sending me a replacement; and (b) taking back the "toy" replacement for a refund.

General Tools should be ashamed for marketing such a poorly made device. You will have a host of problems using it, unless your standards are not too exacting.

The purpose of a woodworking jig is to allow the user to make repeatable cuts. The key is each cut is the same. Not nearly the same, but exactly the same. A jig that allows movement of the wood or depends on eyeballing the cut in some way is not a good jig because the cuts will not be the same. I struggled for hours with this jig and could not make exacting cuts with it because of two major design flaws: 1) not clamping the wood sufficiently - the wood moves unless the clamps are super tight, and 2) not having a way to hold the wood in the exact same location time after time.

The General Mortise and Tenon Jig is made pretty well; however, there is one flaw in its holding power. The internal clamps that hold the wood in place do not do the job. Even with these clamps twisted down very tightly the wood will move, especially on the tenon parts. If one were to glue sandpaper to the internal clamps or make them larger it might work; however, after paying this much for a jig I do not want to tweak it this way and that to make it work well. It should work well out of the box.

The second design flaw revolves around how the user aligns the wood before cutting. The jig instructions tell you to mark each piece at the center of the cut. Then the user puts the wood into the jig and aligns it by sight on center lines on the jig. There is no stop to adjust so the wood goes into the same spot each time. No matter how careful I was the parts were never aligned exactly the same. There was at least a 1/32 difference in the alignment of the wood. Usually it was more, sometimes much more. My problem is I am 65 years old and even with my glasses and a lot of light the marks on the jig and the marks on my wood ended up misaligned. The key here is a lack of a stop. In addition, the stop for the depth of the wood is basically made for 1/2, 3/4, and one inch stock. It is not made for metric sizes (such as plywood). If the stock is slightly smaller or larger than standard sizing it is impossible to get the stock centered on the depth dimension. Even after numerous tries at alignment the stock was at least 1/32 off. The system just does not work. If your stock is exactly 3/4, 1/2 etc I think one could aline the depth dimension eventually. If your stock is off "standard" imperial sizes stand by for problems.

The internal clamps were rather small, and the knobs one has to use to twist the clamps closed are small. My hands have arthritis and turning the small knobs was hard. To top that off one must tighten these knobs excessively to have a chance at holding the wood in place. There are two knobs for each clamp, and the user must tighten both over and over until both are REALLY tight. Tightening one seems to cause the other to need more tightening.

With a playing card or two I probably could have brought the depth adjustment onto the exact center of the wood, thus solving the depth problem. Then I could have cut the mortise parts long and just cut off the excess to get an exact fit on the joint. By cutting the parts a little oversized I could simply bring the frame (or whatever) into square after it was constructed. But why am I paying $100 to build a frame that isn't right from the get go? Do I have to build every joint this way? The entire point of a jig, especially an expensive one, is to place the cuts in the same spot on the stock every time. Thus, the wood must be held against a stop, the clamping mechanisms must hold the wood tightly without me putting in extra effort to sandpaper the front of the clamps etc, and the jig should be easy to use. One must remember that a jig may have to help the user cut 20 or more joints on a single project. Any additional work to square up the joint or work out "minor" problems becomes a major headache. I can make a shop jig for next to nothing that accomplishes that much. When I start paying $100 plus for a jig it has to eliminate those problems completely. This jig fails to do that.

The jig does have mostly well machined parts. The router bit and the template guides are very good. The little wrench made to tighten the template guide onto the router base could not be used on my router, but that was a small concern. The centering process for the router bit was very good I thought. The instructions are good enough if you read them over once or twice before starting. Why the internal clamps were not better is beyond me. Why make the faces of the clamps smooth? Why not make the screws advancing the clamps larger and make the knobs either larger or of a different design so they could be tightened without a problem? Why make the alignment lines so thick? If they were much finer it might be easier to align the wood correctly. Why not design in a stop for the wood parts so every cut will be the same? It would be so easy to make this jig a lot better. And I don't think the ideas I have set forth would cost all that much. Nonetheless, the jig does not pass muster. One star.

AD2

This jig is a joke. Even the gaps between the tail slots are not the same width.The key they give you would not fit between one of the tail gaps.

Poorly made! The tool flexes in your hands while you're using it. And you will have to adjust your work piece and make a second pass.

Perhaps there is something wrong with me. I bought this after watching the EZ video in which it looked simple. I just can't get anything decent out of it. I would not recommend.

Wish it worked as good as the claims are.One good set of dovetails and 30 that suck.Gotta try a different jig.

Bad quality, can't do the job right

As usual the Internet video portrayed this as a fool-proof, use it straight out of the box for perfect joints. That was not the case. The included dovetail router bit was poorer quality than expected. With much practice and patience, decent results might be attainable using soft wood, but my results with hard maple were abysmal. This is my fourth and final effort to buy a dovetail jig that promised ease of use and professional results. So this is fini for me as I'll continue to hand-cut less-than-perfect dovetails.