Fast, Easy & Accurate Router Jigs

Pat's writing is terse. There are no wasted words in this book or his other tomes. Perhaps that is why some readers find it difficult to understand. Every sentence is important!When you read this excellent book, you must consider each sentence carefully, read in sequence and re-read.Even though I have been working with wood over fifty years, I learned SO MUCH from this book! I now have numerous dedicated jigs that serve me very well and provide excellent results. I feel MUCH safer with Warner's jigs and fixtures than I ever have with other router-jigs culled from magazines, books and videos. The set-ups are fast, easy and as close to perfect as I have ever seen.Perhaps this is another reason some reviewers find Warner's works confusing: You must have some experience with woodworking to comprehend the ingenious elegant simplicity of his designs. If you do not understand wood as a material and its idiosyncrasies, or if you haven't used routers a great deal, much of Warner's writing may seem abstruse. From my peculiar background, everything he says makes perfect sense. Each page brings several "Eureka! moments."Since I grew up in a violin-shop, most of my woodworking background was with hand-tools. In my twenties I took to designing and building recording studios, timber-frame homes, and later, boats. Those occupations required the use of power tools, but I still didn't have much experience with routers until I starting building musical instruments again. I quickly learned "respect" (read: "fear") for routers. As a musician I am particularly careful about preserving my fingers. A few near-misses with routers convinced me to temporarily stop using them. Enter Pat Warner and this book...Pat uses sound mechanical principles and engineering logic based on his training & considerable experience. By his own admission, he is largely self-taught and has learned much from his own mistakes. Mistakes are the best teachers. The trick is to insure you do not pay a dear price for your mistakes. Mr. Warner's jigs do that better than all others.In the first of the book, Pat clearly describes the dangers and pitfalls of using routers. Later, he eloquently describes solutions for jigging them safely. Not only are his jigs the safest I have used, they provide quick set-up, versatility and repeatable accuracy to very tight tolerances. (typically to one thousandth of an inch!)The B&W pictures and illustrations are clear and unambiguous. Where necessary, dimensions are given. I have found no mistakes in the illustrations, descriptions or dimensions.Most of Warner's jigs are for woodworking joints commonly used in furniture-making. Yet I have found that once you absorb the principles by which these jigs work, you can adapt his ideas to almost any woodworking task: Making perfectly symmetrical templates for guitar-parts or boat-building forms, curved table-tops & shaped or tapered legs, irregular cabinet designs and perfect circles such as those required for audiophile speaker cabinets.Although I am not much of a lathe-turner, many of the members at our local woodworking club are. Using Pat's principles, I modified his small-part jig to rout perfect angled-segments for segmented bowl-turning. Do you realize how difficult that is? Normally, it is an exercise in frustration, fraught with physical dangers to yourself and the potential for wasting valuable wood. Even if you don't completely screw up the compound angles of segments, turners are often stymied by ill-fitting segments because of imperfect alignments.If you are a turner and wish to create interesting designs with segmented turning, Warner's advice on safely jigging small parts accurately is invaluable... worth the price of this book MANY times over!Again, this is NOT a book for tyros and it requires careful study. There is no "fluff" or "filler" to Pat's writing. Some people find his style difficult or "puzzling." I find it refreshingly concise.SO, with all that in mind I will give this book my highest possible recommendation with these few provisions:1~ You must have some experience with woodworking and understand the basics of wood as a material.2~ You must have a need for these types of jigs in your woodworking.3~ You must have SOME experience with routers and other jigs to appreciate the ingenious simplicity of these designs.4~ You must be willing to SLOW DOWN, read carefully and THINK.If you meet those few requirements, you are ready for this book and will gain MUCH from reading and applying its wisdom.If you are a part-time weekend warrior, you'll still get added safety and learn ideas to improve your chances of success.If you do not read it carefully or appreciate Pat's terse writing style, the author's genius may elude you. It may even frustrate those only familiar with the casual "for dummies" writing-style found in many woodworking magazines.If you are looking for a new "trick," gadget or gimmick to prevent thoughtless errors, this is not for you. None of Warner's contraptions are "the new Kreg jig," a plastic Rockler "innovation" or a woodpeckers' tool-of-the-month. Warner's jigs may not seem elegant or easy to the uninitiated. After you USE his jigs, they become beautiful works of functional art.This is NOT a "one-size-fits-all" or "gee-whiz... You Too can be creative in woodworking!" kind of book. It is NOT for beginners. It is a reliable method for improving safety, accuracy, comfort and speed. These jigs and (most importantly) Warner's reasoning, brings professional accuracy with maximum safety & ease.Personally, I feel I did not pay enough for this book. Whenever I get to his part of California again, I am going to buy Pat dinner and drinks.The tittle is accurate. This book delivers.The dollar-cost of the book is nothing. Your investment in studying and applying Pat's principles is the real entry-fee.It will PAY YOU to read and apply Warner's wise words.

At well under $10, delivered, for a used copy, this old-school book makes sense to understand how Pat Warner thinks of jigs and uses them.As for building jigs, it is sorely lacking. It seems to be plans measured from the jigs he has in his shop, without regard to the "why" of certain materials or dimensions. From what I can tell, he uses whatever finished stock he has, and things like a 2 1/8" dimension just seem to be what was on hand, not a critical dimension at all. On the other hand, things that should be precise aren't, like making the distance from a pivot point to the adjustment point being exactly twice the distance from the pivot to the cutter, so that 1/16" of adjustment corresponds to 1/32" of change at the cutter.

There are many router jig resource books available, but Pat Warner has engineered some very unique and useful jigs that out-shine many similar function jigs.

This is an older book and is only average. It's kind of "old school." In its day, it was probably a great book. Would not have bought it if I had realized it was an older book. If you make something in it, it would be fine, as the author writes well.

Though I'm a Pat Warner fan, his book on jigs would have profited from a better editor. Warner doesn't provide step by step directions on making and using some of the jigs described in the text. Woodworkers with lots of experience will understand what's missing, but the average do-it-yourself reader may not.

Very good, especially if you are a beginner with a router, or even an experienced wood worker. Good book, worth buying.

I received an email on 12/20/10 telling me that the item was posted but I did not receive the item. I contacted the seller on 01/07/11 and received an email stating a replacement has been posted but I did not receive that still (01/17/11). On 01/07/11 email said it would take 10 business days minimum, so I am waiting till this weekend to request for refund.

Good condition, better than advertised, good book, excellent price