Customer Reviews

Fast, Easy & Accurate Router Jigs

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As the title promises, this book contains fast, easy and accurate router jigs. They are good, very good. However, to get there one has to contend with a mish-mash of colloquial American and incomprehensible illustrations.

Let's consider the second jig as an example (Chapter 4). There are two clear photographs showing the whole jig, many other small unclear ones of small portions of it, five large diagrams showing portions of it, and two nice perspective drawings illustrating the whole jig. The clear photographs, it eventually dawns, show the jig lying upside-down and with a shape different from that shown in all the drawings. The workpiece is in a different position in every illustration (and is magically without any tearout). Just to confuse thing further, there is a color photograph of the same jig on the cover - it is printed the wrong way around. It took me, an architect of 45 years experience and lots of woodwork behind me, more than two hours to unravel the mess. One should know that this complexity cosists of only three fixed boards an one sliding part! Whatever became of ordinary orthographic drawings that have served architects and engineers well since the middle ages?

Authors and publishers should realize that books sold on the WWW will be bought by many readers who will navigate 'standard' English with difficulty and only with the help of a dictionary. The kind of home-brew language used in this book will be completely unintelligible to them. Bismarck was right when he said that words are used to conceal intent.

To summarize, this book is a broken Chinese puzzle box. It will take a long time to open but if you succeed, a diamond awaits inside. I would strongly strongly recommend recommend buying Ian Kirby's excellent THE ACCURATE ROUTER as a companion to this one.

This book is mistitled. Mr.Warner seems to be expert in his field, however I'dcall this ADVANCED JIGS FOR THE EXPERT WOOD WORKER.I have read a dozen books on wood techniques, and itwill be many months beforeI figure out some of thediagrams and terminologyused in this tome.

If you are looking for the highest quality results done safely then the methods in this book will serve you. It is true that the techniques given are not easy. There is a lot of assumed knowledge and beginners will need to study carefully. I have found the information here to be invaluable. Once I was able to unravel the content, I invariably found Mr. Warner to be correct. His approach is to obtain professional quality joinery but without handcutting skills. The jigs and fixtures are the key to remove the operators dependence on hand to eye coordination. Give it a chance and you will be able to do things you never thought possible. One has to have a concentration on detail to fully exploit this book. If you want woodworking for dummies, you will get furniture with no character or "WOW" factor.

I received an email on 12/20/10 telling me that the item was posted but I did not receive the item. I contacted the seller on 01/07/11 and received an email stating a replacement has been posted but I did not receive that still (01/17/11). On 01/07/11 email said it would take 10 business days minimum, so I am waiting till this weekend to request for refund.