Adjustable dowelling jig product research

[group34]

I am a student from Salford University, posting on behalf of my group for the module 'Management Development'.

As part of my course I am conducting market research for a client; an inventor/retired joiner from Manchester, who has invented an adjustable jig to make dowel joints to connect wood together. I am aware that there are similar products already on the market but can be somewhat expensive and aren't adjustable, whereas his is. He can also produce his much cheaper.

As part of our research, we have created a short survey regarding the product. We would be extremely grateful if as many of you as possible could take a look at our survey and give us your valuable input.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TG67XQL

Many thanks

[woodsmith]

What is the product?

[group34]

It's an adjustable dowelling jig. A tool that allows someone to make precise dowel joints. A dowel joint is used to connect 2 pieces of wood together. I apologise for no picture of the product. I'm in the process of getting a picture uploaded.

Thanks

[jfc]

Why would someone want to join two bits of wood together ? Seems a bit odd to me

[tusses]

Why would someone want to join two bits of wood together ? Seems a bit odd to me

because it's cheaper and adjustable silly !

I bet them dowel things are made of wood too

[group34]

Have you ever bought something from Ikea? Like a bed frame? Or a table? Well they come in flat packs and when you assemble them you use dowel joints to secure the joints in place along with screws. They are pretty useful. You must have come across a dowel joint before?

Thanks

[promhandicam]

Post a picture and I'm sure some of us will try and help you out. FWIW, many of the regular contributors to this forum are professional woodworkers and so all will know perfectly well what a dowel joint is. For most professional cabinet makers, dowel joints been superseded by superior methods for aligning joints, albeit with tooling that is a little more expensive than a dowel jig - as an example have a look at the Festool Domino Jointer.

[group34]

Post a picture and I'm sure some of us will try and help you out. FWIW, many of the regular contributors to this forum are professional woodworkers and so all will know perfectly well what a dowel joint is. For most professional cabinet makers, dowel joints been superseded by superior methods for aligning joints, albeit with tooling that is a little more expensive than a dowel jig - as an example have a look at the Festool Domino Jointer.

That post about what a dowel joint is, was meant for the chap asking why would someone want to join 2 pieces of wood together. I know a lot of the people here are professional joiners. That's why we need your input. Thanks you for the advice... keep it coming

[promhandicam]

That post about what a dowel joint is, was meant for the chap asking why would someone want to join 2 pieces of wood together.

It has to be said that 'chap' is a bit special

[stevep]

FWIW, many of the regular contributors to this forum are professional pisstakers

Is that what you meant Steve?

To the OP - To be honest, I don't think a dowel joint is the first thing that springs to mind when it comes to joining bits of wood together, as it is really only any good for locating, not for strength. And there are other faster ways of locating, such as the Domino that Steve mentioned above, and the biscuit jointer, or a router to cut a slot plus a strip of plywood. So your guy with the fancy adjustable jig is competing with a whole load of different products, not just other dowel joint jigs.
On the rare occasions I have used a dowel, I use one of these little marker points, £1.86 for 10.

[group34]

Thanks for all the replies, keep them coming! i can't upload a picture of the jig as the picture size is too big. Maximum size allowed is only 250kb and the picture is 455kb. I can try explain the jig. The main part of the jig is a block of hardened plastic and this block has loads of different sized holes through it for different sized dowel joints, each hole is lined with metal so that the plastic can't melt when the user drills through it. On top of the plastic sits a metal plate will allows the jig to attach to edges of wood. The user then only needs to drill through whichever sized hole he wishes. So its like a template which can be attached to wood edges for users to drill through and get a precise dowel joint. Hope that explains the jig a little bit our university group have not got any experience in this market so any feedback is appreciated. Will keep trying to get the picture up.

Thanks

[mattty]

Can you post a link to where the picture is hosted?

[group34]

Ive hosted the picture for you . JFC .

[group34]

The picture I uploaded is a prototype. What do you think?

Thanks

[group34]

nice one

[mattty]

The picture I uploaded is a prototype. What do you think?

Thanks

To be brutally honest it's like designing the ZX82 in 2012...

Very few tradesmen would use or require a dowelling jig these days when there are so many alternatives, most of them better.

My advice would be to design something else.

I'm out.

[senior]

I use this one, you can adjust it with the wing nut, good for getting the cement into corners

[group34]

please look at our survey http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TG67XQL keep the feedback coming

[tusses]

this is a good thread

[group34]

this is a good thread

what do you think of the product?

[promhandicam]

Your survey seems to be as badly conceived as the jig - you can't leave question 4 blank -there is no option for 'wouldn't buy' although you acknowledge in question 5 that people might not be willing to use a dowelling jig!

[group34]

Your survey seems to be as badly conceived as the jig - you can't leave question 4 blank -there is no option for 'wouldn't buy' although you acknowledge in question 5 that people might not be willing to use a dowelling jig!

thank you for your feedback, we will give all feedback to the inventor so keep it coming

[papakev]

i bought a joint genie,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6fIrMNPwqk

[jake]

It looks like a bit of angle iron with some holes in it - if it was a genius idea, how on earth would we copy it?

[group34]

It looks like a bit of angle iron with some holes in it - if it was a genius idea, how on earth would we copy it?

thanks for the feedback, seems as not a lot of people like this adjustable jig

[jonnyd]

Tbh there's no info on how the jig works, how its used, how its adjustable so there's no way of appraising it from a pic . It could be the next big thing in the tiny world of dowel jigs but without any details of how it's used and pics of it being used its impossible to give an opinion on it.

Perhaps if you get the inventor to take some pics of it being used you may get some decent feedback on it.

Cheers

Jon

[jake]

I think you stick a drill in the holes, Jonny and there is probably a fence. HTH.

[jrm]

For whatever reason, most contributers on this forum work wood for a living. There are one or two here who enjoy the rarified position of working with CNC and there are applications for dowel joints in this type of production work which obviously do not require a jig. However, for the rest of us they are seen as an inferior joint, slow to produce, needing absolute accuracy in all directions, and with pretty weak gluing properties. Personally, the one time I sometimes find them useful is when it is difficult to reference from an edge (say where you need to join a curved cap onto a curved panel), in which case the jig would be redundant; the job is achieved simply by using dowel points as Steve referred to above.

Where dowel joints score is where there is not a lot of equipment around. Most people have a drill of some kind and that is pretty well all you need to make a dowel joint. So, in my opinion, your target market is more some sort of DIYer with an occasional need to join wood. I'm not even sure I would include those described as woodworking hobbyists since plenty of them have workshops which would put the average joiner's shop to shame and have certainly moved on from dowel joints a long time ago. But you wil probably have more interest and, to the point, more relevant feedback on a different kind of forum. HTH.

John

[group34]

Thanks for all the feedback guys! Will make all these points to the inventor

[mrgrimsdale]

So - you stick your drill in the holes? Is that it? What did he invent, the hole?
Well somebody must have invented it.
Well done that chap, where would we be without them!

[Andys Woodshed]

On the odd occasion I've used dowels I use one of these http://www.wolfcraft.com/en/products/p/ ... index.html

I think you need to do some more research into whats already available

[ljdyork]

I see what's been done, someone has welded a drill gauge to a plate od metal and called it a dowel jig. It's actually a jig-a-jig.
les

[George Fisher]

I like the block of badly cut wood held in place with a wood screw presumably driven in against the bit of hex bar. Maybe that's the genius element?
Has the guy though of designing wheels?

[mark270981]

To be honest I reckon someone was having us on!

[ondablade]

Here's a few dowelling and related/competitive options that seem to come up fairly frequently:

http://www.dowelmax.com/metric-order.html"
http://www.jessemdirect.com/Paralign_Do ... id=3253526"
http://www.jessemdirect.com/JessEm_Dowe ... /08350.htm"
http://www.joint-genie.com/jgmain/"
http://www.axminster.co.uk/miller-large-dowels"
http://www.mortisepal.com"
https://www.festool.co.uk/Products/Page ... us-GB-240V"
https://www.festool.co.uk/Products/Page ... us-GB-240V"
http://www.axminster.co.uk/dewalt-dw682 ... inter-230v"

The likes of the Miller dowels may complicate the issue a bit...

[thatsnotafestool]

That post about what a dowel joint is, was meant for the chap asking why would someone want to join 2 pieces of wood together.

It has to be said that 'chap' is a bit special

As in 'special needs'

[robos60]

Strength of a dowel joint question is interesting. I've just invested in a 'Dowelmax' where the different types of joint have been tested to destruction in a hydraulic jig and I quote the following from their info:

Wood connection Destructive test result
5 dowel - 890 lbs sq"
routed m/t - 680
square m/t - 600
double loose tenon - 540
pocket hole, 5 screws - 420
No 20 biscuit - 285

10mm dowels is the sort usually supplied so I assume this is what was used. Apparently you can view the testing procedure at the Dowlmax website. It's a great bit of kit and beautifully made (aircraft grade aluminium alloy and brass) and if you compare it to the cost say, of a Domino (which I also use and it's great as well) it works out a lot more economical. I'm currently building a project where the Dowelmax is the best way of making it as it's impractical to use doms. No connection or interest btw with Dowelmax - Rob

[Doug]

Does 5 dowel mean a joint with 5 dowels in?

[tusses]

and is the M&T not wedged ?

[robos60]

Does 5 dowel mean a joint with 5 dowels in?

Apparently…five 10mm dowels

and is the M&T not wedged ?

Dunno…straight m/t I guess.

Doesn't say what dimensions the tenons were but I guess they'd have to be similar to the total area of the dowels or it wouldn't make much sense - Rob