Should I buy kitchen worktop jig ??

[maplecottage]

Has anyone got any experience of kitchen worktop jigs other than Trend ??

When I did my first kitchen, some 12 years ago, I hired a Trend jig/router set. It did a very good job.

I'm now doing a second and notice that the price to buy a jig is not much different from the price to hire + I have my own 2HP 1/2" router these days.

Ive been looking at 'Chippy Shop' (www.chippyshop.co.uk) and they seem to have some very reasonable budget buys - as I'm only looking for a one off, the £20 option is very atractive.

Advice anyone ??

Steve

 

[DAZB]

I have used expensive ones and also cheap ones over the years and unless you make a habit of using one I would advise the cheaper one. The better ones are usually made from a much better grade material and have more and better fitting pegs and you can cut more profiles with them but for a one off a cheapy will manage. Main thing is to clamp it tight and measure , measure and measure again. Expensive mistakes can easily be made.

 

[maplecottage]

Cheers DAZB,

those were my thoughts - I presume a laminated mdf jig will suffice else it would have to be the more expensive (not much) resin ones.

Steve

 

[desq]

I'm getting good results with an MDF worktop jig which cost about 20 quid. I was suprised just how big it was when the courier delivered it. My one was from transtools.co.uk

After hearing how quickly (expensive) router bits get blunt I practiced cutting out cardboard mockups of all the joints I needed before cutting out the real things.

And all the comments are true, you can only really use the cutter once to cut through the laminate, after that they go blunt. Since I've only got a few cuts to do it doesn't matter this time, but if you have a lot of cuts to do you might save money by taking away most of the waste with a jigsaw and then doing the final cut with the router.

I also had a problem sourcing a 30mm bush for my Hitatchi router, in desperation I bought a trend bush but the two holes to mount it were on a smaller radius than the hitatchi holes. The guy in the shop suggested that I also buy a universal mount for about 20 quid, but a quick opening out of the holes on the bush with an angle grinder made it possible to mount it using the existing holes and saved me 20 quid which was rather pleasing.

All in all I've enjoyed doing the work myself, but considering the time its taken me and the cost of acquiring some of the special tools needed its certainly not for going to be everyones cup of tea.

If you are in a hurry or don't feel confident doing some "advanced" diy then there's no shame in getting a pro do do it for you hopefully they won't make mistakes with your valuable worktops!