My dovetail jig slipped and ruined a whole drawer front yesterday

I was cutting the last joint on a maple drawer front, a piece I'd already spent about two hours on. The jig must have shifted a tiny bit, maybe an eighth of an inch, and the tails came out all misaligned. I had to scrap the piece, which set me back a full day and about forty dollars in wood. I think the clamp pressure wasn't even across the whole board. Has anyone else had this happen with a portable jig, and what's your method to make sure it stays put?

3 comments

3 Comments

murphy.abby1d agoMost Upvoted

That "set me back a full day" feeling is everywhere now. You see it with one tiny software bug crashing a whole project, or a single missed ingredient ruining a meal. Modern tools are precise, but they make small errors cost way more than they used to.

miles_garcia1d ago

Heard it called "tight coupling," right?

bennett.jana1d ago

Ugh, my friend spent hours on a spreadsheet and one wrong formula deleted everything. She had to redo it all from scratch.