I build cabinets and furniture as a hobbyist in a small home workshop. I have always liked to use dowels for joinery, but have always been frustrated with my inability to get precise alignment from other jigs I've tried - so much so, that I usually justify other methods (*pocket screws*) even though I know dowels are much stronger. After finding excuses to not use dowels on projects, I was really considering buying a Festool Domino or looking at the Mafell duo-dowler. I have no doubt that Festool and Mafell both make outstanding products, but I gasped at the prospect of paying that much for a tool for a small home workshop. After researching endlessly, I finally decided to give the Jessm jig a try. After putting it through its paces, the Jessem jig seems to finally be "the one" that solves the problems I've encountered over the years. There are a number of features that set this jig apart from others I have used in the past: 1. Beefy, rock-solid construction. This thing is like a tank and every single point on it is square and true. The fence is a perfect 90 degrees to the drilling guides. The indexing pins fit perfectly and ensure that I can cut holes along the edge of face of long panels. I have found other jigs i've used have a tendency to "rock" / shimmy when I use them. Not the Jessem - it is rock solid. Also, I was initially worried about aligning the jig on cabinet parts where it would be difficult to locate and align a center line, however I've found it works flawlessly to either use the indexing pin as a "side stop" similar to the way the Mafell duo-dowler has an indexing stop that drops into place on the bottom of the machine at the edge of a workpiece, or simply align the side of the jig with the side of the panel by butting the jig against a ruler or even my finger checking for alignment. 2. The fence is long and gives a large area to secure clamps. Also, it seems to be relatively well balanced. so I'm not frustrated while trying to secure a clamp. My first doweling jig was one of the relatively inexpensive drilling blocks attached to a Plexiglas fence. That worked well enough until about the 5th time I used it and it fell off a board after I released a clamp and the fence shattered on the floor (it was very top-heavy and unbalanced). I then used another jig that was relatively good (stainless steel and milled body) but I had serious issues trying to clamp it securely because it only has two small clamping points and one of those points was almost always off the side of narrow stock creating a need to fiddle around with the jig to get it to work. Even though the Jessem is beefy, I've found it to be relatively well balanced, so I'm not constantly worried about it falling on the floor and the long fence gives me plenty of clamping options. 2. Jessem's system for joining shelves: Drill the pins in the shelf board, then find the center line of the shelf on the panel, measure 2 inches from center and use the shelf itself with a dowel installed as an alignment guide. It's a genius idea and one that eliminates a lot of frustration I've had with other systems. 3. There's not a lot of fiddly bits to deal with. I have another jig that requires spacers, screws and washers to be constantly moved, reconfigured, and tightened that often kept me looking for excuses as to why other methods of joinery were "good enough" rather than using the doweling jig for projects. The Jessem jig has just a few main parts and doesn't need to be constantly re-configured to work properly. And when you need to take off the fence, it's a single screw and you're set. One item to add here: there are several reviews that mention issues trying to line up the jig with the center line on the jig. In using the jig, I have generally not needed to use the center line. Instead, I either use the side of the jig or the indexing pin as a stop to line up against the side of a workpiece. As long as you're joining two edges that are flush on the front face (e.g., doweling to create a rail and style door or joining cabinet carcasses), I wouldn't bother with the center line as it has potential - no matter how precise you try to be - to introduce error that wouldn't exist by using a physical reference. As noted, the indexing pin works flawlessly in this regard because the machining on the indexing pin is so precise within the drilling guides. Overall, I am extremely happy with the Jessem jig and wish I had started with this one. I could have saved a lot of $ (in fact, with all the money I've spent on other systems, I probably could have purchased a Mafell doweler...well, almost).
