# Kehoe jig review



## Devildog (Apr 20, 2008)

Hi All
I recently bought a Kehoe jig, which you may be aware is a product offered by TexasTimbers of this forum, and, having now tinkered with it, figure I'd post a review (my $.02) in the hopes it may be useful and perhaps more importantly to open a thread to discuss tips and insights into its use.

Other than being a member of this forum and a paying customer for the jig, I have no connection to TexasTimbers or Kehoe, I am not serving as a shill, and I have no incentive to write this review other than my general inclination to amass and redistribute information. 

The jig set arrived as advertised, with nothing missing and nothing damaged, no surprises, and so my initial impression was good, that I got what I believed I paid for and it arrived in a timely fashion with no hassles (not counting Thai taxes, which is another matter altogether).

Rather than begin by reading the instructions, I figured I'd like to get a rough idea of how everything works by just taking it for a test drive, hoping I wouldn't wreck it out of sheer stupidity, of which, btw, I have a surplus, in case anyone is lacking. 

My first task was to make a few splines since I didn't want to screw up the samples included in the kit, which I was envisioning using as standards once I had cut a few of my own. The width of the spline is important, and the kit has a simple little jig to make splines of consistent width and which is held to the tablesaw top with magnets... Alas, my POS table saw has an aluminum top, so the magnets don't stick.... in the spirit of test drive I said fuggit and just eyeballed it. I sorted out what I believed to be the right way to make the splines (again, I hadn't read the instructional pamphlet) and, despite my crappy saw and generally poor guesstimating skills, I churned out what appeared to my astigmatic eyes to be reasonable facsimiles of the requisite splines.
This took about 10 minutes, discounting the time it took me to squish the fat 6 inch centipede that squirmed out from my woodpile while looking for an appropriate scrap... for those unfamiliar with venomous centipedes, let's just say they are the reason the word 'diehard' was coined. 

Next step was to join some wood... I took two padauk scraps, routed a rabbet in one with the intention of joining the ensuing corner with Kehoe splines. Well, the rabbet was a fiasco. My router bit was dull as a butter knife, but in my overeagerness to get on with the splining part, I just forged ahead and shoved the router (a little Bosch 1/4 inch) along the wood, attributing the voluminous smoke it thereby generated to a neighbor who was burning garbage. Now I don't know much about high speed physics and whatnot, but something about the heat generated in this process seems to have pulled the router bit slowly out of its collet... by the time I finished the cut, the router bit was nearly out and the rabbet was hideous, beginning relatively shallow and getting increasingly deeper as the cut went on. Of course I didn't notice this through the billowing smoke. Aw, fuhgeddaboutit, I figured, I'd just slop some glue in there and continue on... it was after all just an experiment, a trial run.

So I brushed some glue on this hideous joint, jammed the whole thing in a corner clamp, and left it for the night. The next morning I figured I'd bust out the sharp new dovetail bits (included in the kit) and try one of my freshly minted splines. The joint was dodgey, and the clamp was just a little too large for me to fit the Kehoe jig over the corner with the clamp still in place.... so it had to come off... without the clamp, the joint was dangling like a 7 year old's loose tooth... this was ugly... but so what, shove it together and rout the damn thing...

The jig fit over the tenuously-held-together corner perfectly, and the cut would have been easy were it not for the dog who decided at that moment to inspect what I was doing by sticking his nose in the works while another dog started biting the electrical cord. Bloody hell. Kick the dog, push it away, oh no that only excites him, and this in turn piques the interest of the other three dogs who charge in to see what the excitement is all about. So now I have an angry buzzing router in one hand, a wobbly joint in the other, and am kicking off five dogs with one foot, all the while wondering why this feels normal, all too normal. I manage to kick a piece of scrap against a wall which distracts the dogs, and zip! the dovetail bites through the wood with little difficulty. Peering down I see 10 fingers still attached, and no splashes of crimson. Sigh of relief, and I remove the jig in order to put the assembly back into the corner clamp to be sure I could hold it securely while smacking the splines in.

I smear some glue in the routed out area, and grab a spline... I whack it in with a hammer, the force of which knocks it clear through its slot... oops, I guess that one was cut too small... so I grab another, add a little more glue and opt for a more civilized tap... this achieves the desired effect... the spline is in and tight with no gaps. Same with #2, and then by the time #3 comes up, the dogs have returned, bored by the wood scrap I tossed them and perhaps annoyed at my ruse, and just as I am tapping that third spline in one of them gives me a little love nip on the inner part of my thigh which causes me to yelp and hit the spline at an oblique angle, and well, I'm not sure exactly what happened, but that third one ended up with a peculiar gap along its bottom edge.

I let everything dry, and then sawed + sanded off the spline stumps protruding from the wood... and behold, incredibly tight, well fitting splines, perfect form, pure platonic beauty, with the exception of the one I hit at a bad angle (and the hammer mark it left on the wood near to it).

So to summarize this review and the conditions under which it was conducted:
The Kehoe jig is extremely easy to use, evidenced by the fact that a sloppy, untalented non-instruction-reading sub-amateur being bum-rushed by five large hunting dogs and a venomous myriapod, can nevertheless get a solid, tight, aesthetically-pleasing joint from an otherwise embarrassingly bad rabbeted corner joint. 

I very much look forward to more controlled conditions, to reading the instructions, and to making some really cool projects with what I can already say is a very useful jig. 

In short: Buy a Kehoe, and tie up the dogs. You'll be glad you did.

Pictures to follow tomorrow (it's nighttime here now).


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## Gerry KIERNAN (Apr 20, 2007)

Interesting read Devildog. I could almost picture the whirling dervish of activity and tumult around you as you worked. You should consider a career in writing short stories.

Gerry


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## Devildog (Apr 20, 2008)

so pictures of this semi-mis-adventure are coming soon, it's just that I got tripped up with work and it's been raining and ok, I'll come clean, I scored a case of tax-free kick-ass red wine from Australia smuggled via Laos and so it's been about 3 days of barbeque and viticulture... anyone into Penfold's Bin 389 will sympathize...
in the meantime, I want to reiterate that the jig, the kehoe jig, really does work well and it's cheap and easy.... hey wait those are same lines i used in my last date... er.. job interview... uhhh it's time to sleep


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

Devildog I don't know what to say. I have been making posts this a.m. and did not notice this thread until just now, in the Tool Review section. A section I suggested and nearly had to fight for to get intitially lol!

But I wanted to thank you for the review, not just because it was positive but that sure helps. But because you took the time and effort to do it. 

I can't wait to see some pictures with those beautiful exotic woods. 

Thanks again!


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## Devildog (Apr 20, 2008)

*pix*

Here are the promised pics....

in the first, we see the crappy rabbet (which reminds me, I gotta sharpen those bits!)

in the next, the first spline is in.... and it's not bad for a first one...

then the bad one, where the dog nipped me....

then the subsequent corner, where the splines are all looking very good and tight indeed...

again, the wood is padauk scrap, the splines are made of local average hardwood ('mai yaang'), the router is a little 1/4" bosch, and the jig is the Kehoe!

all in all, given it's my first attempt, I think this speaks well of the jig. It is easy and accurate.


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## frankp (Oct 29, 2007)

ah, devildog, your scraps, my mantle. I've been redoing our family room and took Sze out a couple weeks ago to pick out wood for a new mantle. I was thinking something on the order of a dark wood, maybe a walnut or something similar. Sze had never seen the Padauk I have stored in the garage, but found a beautiful piece she liked for the mantle. So now it's her new favorite wood (probably because she doesn't have to sharpen the tools) though I can't say I blame her. We have one blond streak in our mantle and a lot of really nice wavy figure throughout. Once it's finished I'll have to put up some pictures.

On a personal note, is your wife Thai or did you just like the place and end up there?

Edit: I posted this and totally forgot to mention the review. Thanks, devildog, for a fun review and the pictures to show me how it actually works. The explanation, while very good, was leaving my limited mind with a few missing pieces as to how it all goes together in the end. The pictures clear everything up.


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## Devildog (Apr 20, 2008)

hi frankp
ja, wife is Thai, though that is relatively late event: I've been in and out of Thailand for 20+ years... first came in 1987, lived for 3 yrs, then went for PhD in anthropology, and the research for that kept me coming back... chiang mai, phrae, buriram, surin, now Ubon. Worked in Japan a number of years (Miyazaki- decent surf spot and I lived right on the beach) plus a bit in cambodia, then was in DC for MS/PhD #2 (not quite done) , and moved back to Thailand (Ubon) in 2005. Married in 2006. 

like all places, there is good and bad here. bad is currently the humidity and the bugs. the good is the endless summer, and the food and the freedom. oh, and the wood!


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

Devildog said:


> . . . the good is the endless summer, and the food and the freedom. oh, and the wood!


It would take alot of bugs and humidity to negate those. All four summer, food (love Thai) freedom, and wood pretty much in my top favorite 10 things in life. 

Is the food there, compared to what we get in a Thai resturaunt here, analogous to Tex Mex and real Mexican food? The two are nearly night and day and I'm wondering if Thai food has been altered over here as well to be more "marketable".


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## Gerry KIERNAN (Apr 20, 2007)

Devildog said:


> hi frankp
> ja, wife is Thai, though that is relatively late event: I've been in and out of Thailand for 20+ years... first came in 1987, lived for 3 yrs, then went for PhD in anthropology, and the research for that kept me coming back... chiang mai, phrae, buriram, surin, now Ubon. Worked in Japan a number of years (Miyazaki- decent surf spot and I lived right on the beach) plus a bit in cambodia, then was in DC for MS/PhD #2 (not quite done) , and moved back to Thailand (Ubon) in 2005. Married in 2006.
> 
> like all places, there is good and bad here. bad is currently the humidity and the bugs. the good is the endless summer, and the food and the freedom. oh, and the wood!


Devildog you didn't mention wether or not your wife was on the good or bad side of the good/bad equation. You better rectify that before she sees the thread.:laughing::laughing::laughing:

I have only been to Thailand once. I went to Songkla province to do some repair work for Canadian Helicopters several years back. I loved the place, and would really like to come back sometime, and bring my wife.

Gerry:thumbsup:


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## Davet (Nov 16, 2007)

Texas Timbers,

I have a TS2400 table saw with a non- magnetic aluminum table.
Can I still use your system for cutting the splines with this table saw?


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## Devildog (Apr 20, 2008)

Davet
the instructions include a way to use the magnet thing on an aluminum saw (I hadn't read it when I posted), but even without that you can make perfectly good splines by making a super-easy little jig, by clamping something to the tabletop to measure, or even by just drawing a mark in the right spot.
TT might have more to add... the whole rig is quite simple, and it is accurate, which is the real important part.

Gerry - she's on good side of the equation of course!... whether she reads the thread or not! (unlikely given that she doesn't know any english!)

TT - yeah, Thai food here and there are worlds apart..... though sometimes that's a good thing. I've been here for many years and have a very flexible palate, but somehow a plate of boiled silkworms or fire-ant-larvae omelette just doesn't do it for me, though I eat it to be polite. Things tend to be fair bit spicier here, a little heavier on the fish sauce/ lighter on the sugar, and the range of ingredients is greater here. But Thai/Lao food in the US can be quite good (as can mexican food in texas/california etc) and i don't put too much stock in consuming 'authenticity'. if it tastes good, i eat it! unfortunately the thai beer here gives me a headache (preservatives?), so we get our beer and wine from neighboring Laos. Lao beer is pretty good, and they get world-class wine from around the world and sell it tax-free. local food is better with beer than wine, but i prefer wine.


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## Daren (Oct 14, 2006)

Devildog said:


> but even without that you can make perfectly good splines by making a super-easy little jig, by just drawing a mark in the right spot.


That is the way I do it. As an example of how easy it is to use..._*I*_ made professional looking joints right out of the box :laughing:. I had not chimed in, but I cracked up in the first post when Devildog says the typical guy thing about setting the instructions aside until after use.


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

Davet,

I can't add anything to what Devildog and Daren said. There's not a table saw made that the system cannot be at least adapted to in some way with minimal effort. 

You receive 3 jigs with the kit. The actual dovetail routing jig that you use a router with; the spline-making jig that you use on your table saw (this is the jig that's oriented to match the tilt of your table saw); and you also get the corner inlayer jig. Of course you get all the other goodies mentioned on the website.

Not a sales pitch here just an FYI. We are working with a consultant team with a proven online marketing track record, and they have told us to RAISE OUR WAY-TOO-CHEAP price. We knew we've been selling our kit too cheap especially with the several manufacturing increases we've absorbed in our petroleum-based products but wanted to have unbiased input from someone who specializes in marketing woodworking items online. They have advised us to establish a firm retail price and run online specials. We are going to take their advice pretty soon. Most likely by the 1st of next month if not sooner. The price will be significantly higher, to attain the market value their experience and expertise says it should fetch. 

However, we will honor the current price for you even if you cannot order one for a while, within reason of course. I mean, if you wait for 60 days that might be a stretch but if you can't get one until after the prices are changed on the website for a week or two then just email me and we'll give you payment instructions.


Devildog, boiled silkworms and fire-ant-larvae omelettes just don't blow my skirt up either. :no:


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## frankp (Oct 29, 2007)

TT, I've not lived in Thailand, but I spent a few weeks there. I have lived in Korea, and I've visited extensively all around Asia and one thing's for sure, it's never the same food as we get here in the States. Unless you live in an urban area and have a high population of the particular population whose food you're looking to eat, it's not likely to be authentic either. I live just outside of DC and we have some of the best food opportunities you can get (except Mexican, don't even get me started on the lack of quality Mexican food here) but there are really only a couple of authentic Thai places around here (and I can count about 20 Thai restaurants in my area off the top of my head). 

I'll agree with Devildog though, it's about the quality, not necessarily the authenticity. If it tastes good, I'll eat it. Authenticity is great, but when I'm looking for good food, it's not necessarily the top of my concerns list.

Devildog, I know some places in Asia used to cut their beer with formaldehyde and similar lovely preservatives so maybe you're right. The wine's a better "health" choice anyway, right? I've got a plan to try some of the Australian you mentioned in some post or other... I've been liking the bin 555 from Windham Estates??? but haven't been drinking much wine lately. Maybe now that summer's here I'll reverse that trend a little...


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