Customer Reviews

Incra ULTRA24SYS 24-Inch Jig Ultra Woodworking System

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is truly a fabulous jig for use with a router table. You will appreciate the appearance and quality of the jig the moment you open the box. This may very well have been the first time I enjoyed assembling something that has come out of a box in pieces. The instructions are easy to follow and the jig is well engineered for the intended purpose. Having cut many dovetails by hand and having used other dovetail jigs, I was impressed with the versatility and the wide range of sizes and patterns that are made simple with the enclosed templates. By carefully following the instructions, you can cut perfect fitting dovetails, blind dovetails, and box joints even if you have minimum woodworking experience. A novice may not intuitively understand the adjustment and setup sequence, but will get perfect results by following the easy to read instructions. If you like accuracy and repeatability you can not beat this system. Dovetail jigs that enable the pins and tails to be routed simultaneously are faster to use but do not offer the flexibility and variety that the Incra system does. For building drawers, you just can't go wrong. After you have made your dovetails you can use this jig to fit your drawer bottoms with blind dadoes that you can precisely control width and depth with the 1/32 inch scale. I use the Freud Incra 1/2 inch router bit set and get fabulous results. I may not totally give up hand cutting dovetails, but this system gives results that unbeatable. Combine that with the versatility and the precision adjustability and this has to be a five star item. The price is very reasonable for the quality of this jig!

Unlike the last reveiw of this, you are reading a review from a hack. Until 3 months ago, the only thing I knew about dovetails came from the Aniques Roadshow. This jig/fence is amazing! The instructions are the best I have ever seen from a tool manufacturer. All parts are divided into seperate, labeled bags and everything fits like a glove. Follow the instrucions closely and make sure you adjust it perfectly on set up. Everything you do after that will depend on your accuracy at set up. All parts were present and the quality and feel is outstanding.

I cut beautiful dovetails for drawers in many different sizes and they all fit perfectly. If your a novice, like me, take some time to familiarize yourself with product. Buy a lot of pine and try things out after reading the instructions. I moved to real wood (oak) after only a few times. I can't say enough about it! It really is amazing that a tool can upgrade my skill level several notches. Repeatability is also worth mentioning. If you make dovetail or box joints this is the jig for you. Happy woodworking!

Without going over all of the other comments I would have to say this this is a nice tool. It does what it says it will. You can put together very nice looking basic dovetails as well as doing some fancy ones. The problem with this thing is that it gets mind numbing messing with that micrometer everytime you move the jig to make a cut. If you do not do it right each time error will start to show in your joints. That said, for a small box with only a few dovetail joints it is not a big deal, but if you are going to do LOTS of big things with many dovetail cuts you might find this gets old very quick. The big plus of this jig is its versatility. It comes with many sizes and patterns of dovetails that you can do in short order. Others have made note of the sharp edges on this jig and I would have to go along with them. It is not a big deal, but a point well taken and something that the Incra people should have taken care of. For the most part I think this is a very nice jig for the person that does small projects in small numbers. If you are going to make large number of big items I would go for the Leigh jig for not too much more money.

I've been working with wood 36 years now and can say that using the Incra Ultra24SYS is a pleasure. I have owned two other dovetail jigs, and this jig is by far superior either one of them. As with all dovetail jigs, set up is critical and can be somewhat time consuming. Once this jig is set up, repeatability is superb. I have read other reviews and agree with them for the most part. As for children being injured by the sharp edges on the ends of the aluminum extrusions, children should not be around this type of equipment. I do agree that plastic caps would look better and could solve this problem. This machine is a dream machine.

I've been using a Porter Cable 24" for doing half blind dovetails on drawers. I'll definitely keep it for this since it's much faster than the Incra if you're making more than one drawer. Having said this, I gave the Incra Ultra 4stars because of it's versatility. I just got one for XMas and did some box joints (1/4" over 13") and they all fit perfectly. I then did some half blind dovetails for a small box and again got perfect results the first time.

Adjustments were fast and easy. I'm upgrading my router table to include a heighth adjustment. Getting the bit heighth perfect was the only problem and that wasn't part of the Incra Jig.

I then went on to variable spaced dovetails and -perfect results. I should mention that I had to watch the new video to get this right. The instructions with the jig don't cover variable spacing or through dovetails so you're left hanging without the video. If they had included the video I would have given this 5 stars.

I really like the ability to use different dovetail bits, different spacing, etc. Gives my work a custom look. Next comes the double dovetail half blind joints. I'll let you know how this goes.

I have been facinated by the Incra Jig demos at woodworking shows for years. I was lucky enough to recieve a 24" ultra, the master template library, and the three videos as a birthday present.
The set-up was fairly simple if you take your time. I had one snag during set-up, I was missing one small bolt, I scrounged around and found the correct size at a local hardware store. I was up and running, cutting near perfect box joints and dovetails in just a few hours. I also was missing a template that was refered to in one of the videos. A quick e-mail to the incra (taylor design) customer support department had both the bolt and the template in the mail and delivered within a week, no questions asked.
Overall, this is an excellent product that does everything it promises, as long as you follow the instructions. The company was very responsve to correcting their errors and will get my business again.

First of all this as an exceptional tool. I am a joinery novice but am now creating professional dovetail joints without problems. I have two comments that I think would be important to new users.

1. The setup directions are very confusing. Incra includes directions for every jig variation and accessory variation all within the product manual. I actually had 4 (yes four!) different documents that I was being refered between and still couldn't find the exact document for my fence - until a change page fell out of one of the docs. I think that officially makes 5 separate docs. I guess Incra changes their products often and doesn't recreate assembly manuals.

2. Setup is everything. If you get the router bit depth and find the board center accurately, you're home free. I've started using a dial indicator and caliper. It may seem like an overkill but the extra time upfront allows me to create near perfect joints all day long.

I thought perhaps the viewpoint of a "Buyer/Researcher" might be helpful to others trying to make a decision on a fairly expensive investment. I am the type of tool purchaser who spends a great deal of time researching all major purchases.As I am going to buy a new tablesaw in the immediate future, I have investigated all the major fence,router table,dovetail machines,and other like systems by reading all the reviews, both magazine and internet,manufacturers catalogs and examining actual equipment at shows. Impressed as I am with the design, repeatibility, and quality of all the Incra products,something kept bothering me until I realized that the square cut edges on the ends of all the aluminum extrusions are a product liability lawyers dream and they detract from the beautiful gold finish! Trouble could occur the first time a child runs into an overhanging end,or some litigation minded adult cuts themself -it may happen.(By the way, I'm NOT a lawyer!) It would only take a simple plastic cap to snap on the ends such as other manufacturers use on their saws and accessories which have the same type extrusions. This would not cost Incra much and the greatly improved safety, appearance and contribution to overall quality would pay for itself many times over. At this point I should say I have decided to buy an Incra miter gauge,router table system,and tablesaw fence system in spite of this. I sincerely hope Incra takes this suggestion in the spirit in which it was written and implements this improvement to an already excellent product line. When they do I'll be the first in line to buy the end cap upgrade! The main reason I didn't give them a fifth star are those raw edges and I don't need to be an owner to find them objectionable. An additional possibly needed improvement are the clamping bolt ends on the TSIII Precision Table Saw Fence and maybe some of their other products. On the one I looked at, the metal to aluminum pressure gouged through the gold surface into bare aluminum.This left circular grooves on the inner track with tiny bits of metal. Perhaps the machine I looked at may not have been set up correctly. If it was,then the metal clamp's threaded ends need to have a non marring plastic end cap applied. This would keep raw aluminum from appearing anew in a different location with every fence adjustment. Again I may not be justified in this observation and even if I am, I still think the Incra systems are the best I have seen for quality, precision, ease of setup, adjustment,and repeatilibity that approaches machine tool standards ( Which the nature of the wood itself prevents much of the time ).There are several other excellent systems available from other companies but if the aforementioned assets are as important to you as they are to me, they will outweigh the very few faults I found.