Milescraft 1319 Joint Mate - Handheld Dowel Jig for Corner, Edge, and Surface Joints, 3 Metal Bushing Sizes (1/4in., 5/16in., 3/8in.) and Self-Centering Pins, Includes Fence

It is made of hard plastic, like the one you will find on kreg products; instructions are clear and concise, and this products arrives in it's box alone, just the jig, and the instructions, you have to buy the drill bits and dowel centers and drill bit stop collars if you want to have a good set for dowel joinery. For me it is fine because I put some painters tape on the bit for depth stop and I drill what I need.This jig works best if you use a corded drill, a corded drill have more torque and revolutions, if you do the jig won't wobble and will do clean holes, and it works better with dowel pins instead of the common ones you have to cut, because the pins expand with glue and they fit fine. The common poplar dowels that you have to cut, are exactly the same size of the hole and you have to use some "persuasive" force to test the fit. Something really important for dowel joinery: your work pieces must be square if the parts are not, you will hear a lot of people complaining about that is not precise or they don't match. I've done it and based on my own results is simple as that. Square pieces = nice job; not square pieces = frustration.

This Milescraft version is more sturdy than others of similar plastic design, and being plastic it is worrisome to clamp. The adjustable fence is a helpful feature. Because it is only handheld, use brad-point drill bits to reduce chance of slip movement.There are other doweling jigs that use a clear acrylic alignment scale attached to a metal rectangle drill guide that is faster/easier to clamp, however that jig does not come with an adjustable width of cut fence. This predetermined style of jig is very solid, quick and easy to set up, clamp and drill. Very simple but with the only one preset "as-is" alignment.(I suppose you could make different thickness shims with longer screws for adjustability)This jig works well without spending a bunch of money on an expensive jig that you only use on odd occasions. Just take your time with the minor set up and use brad-point drill bits

Just finished using this for the first time and i am impressed. Such a simple and clever design makes it super easy to get good results. All the joints in my project lined up perfectly. After a couple of joints I had the process down and the work went quite quickly. I was trying to decide between this one and the $200 Jess-‘Em one. I’m sure the Jess-‘Em is wonderful but I can’t imagine it giving any better results than this $10 one. I would highly recommend it.

I was skeptical that such an inexpensive tool could give satisfactory results but I figured it was worth a try. I had to install 16 dowel pins on 4 3/4" x 3" boards (4 per board on the ends). 14 of the holes were drilled perfectly. The 2 that weren't were my fault for not holding the device firmly enough. Hint: I had already made slight roundovers on the boards which made holding it firmly and square a little tougher so don't do that. The holes I did incorrectly I just put a glued up dowel in them and sawed them off flush and redrilled. The only drawback to this little tool is I was drilling holes in the ends of a 3" wide board. The tool's guide pins are too far apart to use as directed. I had several boards of the exact same width so I clamped one on either side and was able to use it as instructed. All in all, I am very happy with this little tool. A truly brilliant and simply design and a great value.

I went back and forth on what to rate this product for a while after using it to drill dozens of dowel holes of varying sizes in a couple different projects. Ultimately, I settled on 3 stars. Right down the middle. You get what you pay for applies here. For what it costs, it gets the job done and does it well enough IF you know what you're doing. Notice, I said "if YOU know what you're doing", not "do what the instructions tell you to do."If you use this product as instructed, it will only infuriate you. The self-centering posts work great in theory, but in reality, trying to hold the product in place while also drill is borderline impossible, no matter how many clamps are helping. Even the slightest tweak in alignment can result in a janky dowel hole and loose fit. I also found that the self-center posts, and the corresponding centering line on the sides of the product, were not actually center. I did a half dozen test holes in a spare bit of timber when first getting the product and just 1 was actually of use and centered.However, if you adapt this product with a little knowledge and careful measuring, you can get a lot of great use out of it for what it costs. Rather than using the self centering posts to center the jig holes on the edge/end of a board, I decided to use the red edge guide that it comes with and a few sets of clamps to hold the jig to my workbench and then slide the board in and out of that, clamping the board in place, drilling, and moving on. It worked so much better than trying to fuss with a handheld jig. Since the centering line on the sides of the jig was not even remotely accurate, about 1/4-1/3 of the hole diameter off in fact, I spent a little time to find out where center actually was on all axes and marked them with a silver Sharpie for reference. Then I used the same Sharpie to mark a board "depth" gauge for the red edge guide.At the end of the day, for $11 and a few hours of trial and error, I created a more than serviceable dowel jig. The value cannot be beat but be prepared to work at it to get good results and I would not, under any circumstance, attempt to do any fine woodworking with this jig. For $50 more you can get far better, working right out of the box jigs that will save you a lot of time and effort. If you're just trying to get a cabinet together or do some infrastructure woodworking in your shop or something and on a budget, this is perfect.