Jigged to Death: The Rise of the Almighty Jig

Let’s talk jigs. Not the Irish dance kind—though frankly, that might be less exhausting. I mean woodworking jigs. The sacred contraptions of plywood, T-tracks, and questionable geometry that promise to make your life easier, faster, and more precise… once you spend 14 hours building them.

If you’ve opened YouTube lately and typed “woodworking,” you’ve probably been sucked into the Jig Vortex™. It starts innocently enough: “How to make a simple crosscut sled.” Next thing you know, you’re watching a 47-minute epic titled “Ultimate Multi-Function Jig That Cuts, Sands, Mortises, Makes Coffee, and judges your every move.”

The Jigpocalypse Is Upon Us

There are jigs for:

• Cutting perfect circles (because freehand is for anarchists)

• Holding your phone while you film your jig

• Aligning dowels with the precision of NASA docking modules

• Sharpening chisels to a molecular edge

• Clamping things that don’t want to be clamped

• Holding your glue bottle at a 37° angle for optimal squeeze-out

I saw a jig last week that was just a jig to help you build other jigs. That’s right—a jig jig. We’ve gone full recursive.

Now, some brave souls are attempting the Holy Grail: the Universal Jig. This mythical beast claims to do everything. Crosscuts. Miters. Dovetails. Biscuit joinery. It slices, it dices, it probably has a Bluetooth speaker. But here’s the catch: it takes three weeks to build, requires a PhD in mechanical engineering, and weighs more than your table saw.

And once it’s done? You’ll still need a jig to help you store it.

Jig envy starts with admiration. You see a YouTube thumbnail: “My Ultimate Dovetail Jig (Now With Laser Guidance and Cupholder!)” and think, “Wow, that’s clever.” You click. You watch. You nod. You start sketching. And before you know it, you’re knee-deep in Baltic birch, trying to replicate a jig that requires a CNC machine, a 3D printer.

Suddenly, your simple goal of cutting a board straight has spiraled into a three-day jig build that involves epoxy pours, brass inlays, and a sacrificial goat (optional, but recommended for precision).

Meanwhile, your actual project—the bookshelf for your wife, the cutting board for your cousin, the birdhouse for your neighbor’s emotionally needy parakeet—sits untouched. Because you’re busy building a jig to hold the jig that will help you build the jig that might help you start the project.

You begin to question everything:

• Am I a woodworker, or a jig collector?

• Is this jig solving a problem, or is it the problem?

• If I build a jig that builds jigs, will I finally be free?

• Why does this jig need a calibration app?

You start dreaming in T-tracks. You wake up whispering “toggle clamp.” You begin referring to your jigs by name. “Ah yes, Gerald the mortising jig. He’s temperamental but loyal.”

And then it hits you: you’ve become the very thing you swore you wouldn’t. A jig evangelist. You start telling friends, “You know, you could build a jig for that.” They were just trying to hang a picture.

You wonder if there’s a support group. “Hi, I’m Jerry, and I haven’t built a jig in 36 hours.” Applause. Tears. Someone passes around a biscuit joiner like it’s a talking stick.

But deep down, you know the truth: the jig is both your prison and your salvation. It’s the thing that keeps you from finishing projects, but also the thing that makes you feel like you’re doing something important. It’s the woodworking equivalent of organizing your toolbox instead of fixing the leaky faucet.

So you press on. You build. You refine. You add micro-adjusters. You laser-engrave your logo. And you whisper to yourself, “This one… this jig… this will be the last one.”

I’ll admit it—I’ve got jig envy. I see these creators with their pristine shops and their jigs that look like they were CNC’d by angels. Meanwhile, I’m over here with a scrap of MDF and a clamp that’s seen things (things we dont talk about). My jigs are more “rustic” (read: held together by hope and wood glue).

But here’s the real question: are we woodworking, or are we just jigworking? Have we become jigsmiths in a quest for jigvana?

So next time you’re tempted to build a jig to hold your pencil while you sketch your jig plans, take a breath. Ask yourself: “Do I need this jig, or do I just want to feel something?”

And remember: the best jig is the one that gets you back to making sawdust, not spreadsheets.

Stay jiggy, my friends.