Precision Doweling Jig

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Tool: 08350 Dowelling Jig Master Kit

Manufacturer: JessEm

Price: $195

Dowel joints are a strong, simple and low-cost method of building furniture. All you need is a jig and a drill. Decent jigs have been around for years, but most are so basic that they don’t work well for many applications. Want to join a 3/4″ rail and a 2″ square leg? You might be out of luck.

A new dowelling jig from JessEm is much more versatile. Rail and leg joinery is no problem, for example, as the jig works with material of virtually any thickness.

Using the jig’s unique alignment slot, you can breeze through such tricky situations as drilling alignment pins for table leaves or joining shelves to the sides of a bookcase.

Using the jig’s sliding base and a series of detents, you can easily adjust the distance from the face of a workpiece to the dowel holes in precise 1/8″ increments. (The jig’s range is 3-1/2″.) This feature is invaluable for making joints with setbacks or multiple rows of holes.

The JessEm 08350 Dowelling Jig comes with all you need for making 3/8” dowel holes. The 08350K Master Kit includes additional accessories for drilling 1/4″ and 1/2″ holes. To switch hole sizes, you swap out the plate holding the bushings that guide the drill bit. The spacing between the holes is different for each plate. The 1/4” plate has seven holes spaced 1/2” on center; the 3/8″ plate has five holes spaced 3/4″ on center; the 1/2″ plate has three holes spaced 1” on center.