My dovetail jig revelation came from a 30 dollar used one

For 5 years I cut dovetails by hand, thought I was too good for a jig. Then I took a side job building 18 drawers for a kitchen remodel in Spokane and my hands just could not keep pace. I borrowed a buddy's cheap dovetail jig one weekend and realized my joints were actually more consistent with it than by hand. The pins looked machine perfect, but honestly the fit was tighter than most of my hand cut stuff. That hit hard, I spent years bragging about hand cut tails while my drawer fronts had tiny gaps I filled with sawdust and glue. Now I use the jig for production runs and save hand cuts for custom trim or one off pieces. Has anyone else had a moment where the old school method just lost to the tool you swore off?

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ray_king1mo ago

Bought a $40 belt sander off a guy at a garage sale back in 2011 just to strip paint off a door. Ended up using it to fix every wobbly table leg in my house, and now I can't even look at a hand plane without feeling like a hypocrite. The real kicker is I still tell people I prefer hand tools, but my workshop is basically a shrine to whatever's on sale at the hardware store. Guess we all gotta eat crow sometimes, just make sure you have a good dust mask on when you do.

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