Customer Reviews

Jasper 200J Model 200 Circle Cutting Jig for Plunge Router

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you need to cut a precise circle this is an excellent jig. I have had mine for over a year and love it! It is a widely recommended tool in the audio industry for speaker cut-outs in enclosures where exact(flexible sizing) openings are required. This tool can be used on almost any material that your attached router can cut while giving the operator ease of use and control to create a perfect circle. If you need to cut a circle, buy it!! I recommend this product!!...

Only has two screws to hold to the freud. I pulled off the baseplate and attached the jig. Held solid. I use it with a 1/4" up spiral bit.

I used it to put in floor recepticles in hardwood floors. Worked great, and the setup is very easy. I know it's plastic, and you probably need to accept that it's a semi consumable item, but so far it's holding up fine, and the holes are cleaner than a hole saw, and I would say, just as round if not better.

As with any jig, you do need to take a few passes through scrap to get the feel of it. The closer to perpendicular you can get the pin, the better, but it's not rocket science.

I'm not fond of plastic attachments or accessories as a rule, and clear acrylic - oh no! But... the Jasper Circle jigs work very nicely indeed. Buy them, read the instructions and follow the instructions and you get a excellent circles everytime. I think I'd prefer this jig in an aluminum plate version, but perhaps that would be overkill.

Anyhow, if I ever manage to break this jig, I'll buy a replacement without hesitation. Good Jig.

This product is designed to work with plunge routers. While it may be possible to use it with fixed base routers, I think it would be tricky and might compromise the tool's built in accuracy. A guide for selecting mounting holes for many routers is printed on the back of the shipping card, and was easy to follow. The product includes a pin and insert to allow centering on your router's base.

In use, some things worth mentioning: It is imperative you attach your workpiece to a substrate, both inside and outside the selected diameter circle you're cutting so as the cut is completed, nothing moves. Good quality double sided "turner's tape" worked well for me.

The product includes a 1/8" pin that goes through the jig and into the center of your workpiece. Might also be a good idea to drill into the substrate a bit as well, a touch more insurance the center piece doesn't move and ruin your cut.

Be aware you'll be turning the entire router around the central pivot, so leave yourself some room to walk around it so you can keep a good grip on your router's handles. Also, it pays to use your plunge router's stops to take partial depth cuts. I went through half inch hardwood plywood with a solid carbide Freud bit in three passes, leaving only about an eighth for the final pass to minimize forces on that turner's tape I used to hold things together, and had no problems.

I mounted the Jig to my Hitachi M12V and found only two screw holes which line up! This lets the jig move when using it, changing the dimensions of the cutout by 1/8" or so.

As another user said this is an awesome product but the holes that are used to screw it to the router break easy. I guess you can try to be careful but I think it's just too thin in those areas.

If you are a speaker box builder by trade or hobby(or any other project that requires lots of different size holes to be cut in wood, I highly recommend this product. It makes perfect circles and curves each and every time. This beats the heck out of using a jig-saw. My only complaint is the jig did not line up with the holes on my brand/model router. I did custom tap the holes and works well.

My friend and I build speaker cabinets, so we often use routers for cutting large circles; >4".
He thought this was a good idea and bought one. I have used it twice.
Yes, it works as advertised and this price (at Amazon) is one of the best I've seen.
However, I cannot understand why any woodworker worth his salt would buy one.
I give it three stars because it works, but it is ridiculously overpriced, complicated and prone to breakage.

First of all, many routers come with ( or have available) a simple circle cutting attachment that works just fine. If your router does not have such an attachment available, you can easily make one. I make them from brass rod which you can get cheaply at any hobby store.

Further, you can make custom bases that automatically guarantee accurate circles. I make mine from 3/8" ply wood or lexan. Use the existing router base as a template, and make your custom base extension the size of the hole's radius, plus one or two inches. Drill a pilot hole (exactly on the center line) at one half the speaker-diameter, minus 1/2 the bit-size. Each "custom" base costs about 50-cents worth of plywood (or 2-dollars of Lexan) and takes about five minutes to make.

When you need to cut several holes of the same size, attaching a different router base is much faster and easier than fussing with this thing or ANY adjustable jig. For speaker builders, there is almost NO case where we do not have to cut more than one hole of the same size. Even if you are building one-off custom guitar cabs with a single speaker, the home-made base is faster, easier and more accurate simply because you guarantee it works with YOUR router and bits when you build it.

Having said all that, I can think of a case where this would be worth the money;
IF... you have only one router ( and do not want to get another )
IF... you will build many different types of speaker cabs, slowly and only as a hobby,
IF... you cannot find, build or buy any $4 dollar aftermarket or manufactured circle jig,
IF... you are only cutting speaker-holes larger than 4"

THEN this is a recommended product.

Any hole 4" or smaller is more easily done with a hole saw. Typically, we only have to make small holes for tweeters. Then there is usually only one such hole per cab, or there are MANY, as in a line-array. In either case, small holes are easier with the hole saws in a drill-press, so a router jig like this is useless for those.

After building a few speaker cabinets, you will have a collection of bases for the most common speaker-sizes; each one marked with the ROUTER, SPEAKER SIZE, & BIT; for instance, "BOSCH, 12" Celestion, 1/8 bit"

The most common speaker-sizes are 6", 6.5", 8", 10", 12" and 15". You can make ALL SIX of those custom bases for any router in 30 minutes. Label them, hang them on a nail near your work-area. With a screw driver, you can swap bases in less than one minute.

You can switch out bases in one-minute and get working before the guy with this jig has even done his arithmetic.
My plywood bases have NEVER broken in forty years of speaker building, despite being dropped, thrown and borrowed by careless co-workers dozens of times. I doubt that any plastic base would survive so well.

I have demonstrated such jigs to countless musicians and speaker-builders over the decades and have shown people how to make them at least a hundred times. (That's right, I have made and given-away over a hundred circle cutting bases... they are THAT easy and cheap-to-make!)

I am a real fan of ingenious jigs and would gladly support any new product that solved any woodworking problem economically, did the job faster, better or saved me work. This product does none of those things.

If you have any mechanical ability, at all, this is the circle jig for you. Easy setup and use. I would recommend a high output router though, something in the 2hp and above range

Great item for cutting circles. Not much to go wrong when using this. Well made acrylic jig with all the hardware included to mount to MOST routers. You will need a 1/4" router bit.