With Kreg jigs tending to be more expensive, I have a feeling this product is a common choice for folks who, like me, aren't yet familiar with pocket hole joinery, and maybe just have one project in mind to try it out with. Once I received the jig, read the very limited instructions and started planning my joints and figuring out how I'd set the jig up to drill the holes, I very quickly realized this wasn't the best choice of jigs. Being able to clamp and drill anything from 1/2" up to 1.5" sounds great and flexible in application, but the fact that there's no actual adjustment of the placement of the holes or changes to the angle because of different board thicknesses means that flexibility is meaningless. With a static jig like this, there will basically be one thickness of wood that the holes end up coming out the edge at the correct point. All other thicknesses will be off the mark. The limited instructions show pictures of angled joint holes that honestly don't even make sense how they would have drilled them. The product video shows similar, though not quite so improbable angle joints, but again, they just show the board already drilled and never show drilling holes for an angled joint. Basically, they border on false advertising, and overall I feel like they are taking advantage of buyers who don't yet know enough about pocket joinery to know this jig is very limited in the applications it will work well for. It might seem like you are getting equal value or more than for a slightly higher priced jig from another company, but you are actually getting a lot less due to the lack of adjustment and versatility. I regret the purchase and wish I'd thrown another $10 at a better jig, now I'll be looking at buying a more expensive one after having wasted money on this one already. Yes, it is solidly constructed. It's basically a block of aluminum with some holes in it. Would be hard to break. Yes, it will work for very basic pocket hole joinery and probably works well for common 3/4 inch (1x...) material. But that's about it. Oh, and it's not even gold/brass/whatever color is shown. It's just plain old aluminum. ------- Update After going through a decent sized project with this jig, and shopping around a bit more, I'm adding a 3rd star based on the results I got with it, and the fact that while you can buy a better/adjustable jig for $10 more, you'd also need to buy a face clamp to actually use that jig, so in the end, and upgrade from this would be about double the price. So, for half the price, it's "Okay". The results you can get with this jig using 3/4" material are fine. Just know you'll need to invest more time into getting it set up and doing a lot of test pieces. Between the lack of adjustability of the jig, and the lack of any guidance on adjusting the bit, it takes fiddling to get set up right. I started with the general guideline of setting the bit 1/8" short of having the tip come out the end of the board. This made the holes too shallow, so the screw heads would be visible. Of course, if you set the bit too deep, you'll probably have screw points coming out the outside, which you definitely don't want. So fiddle about until you get that just right and you can get decent results. Also, despite 1 1/4" screws being recommended for joining 3/4" material, whether 1x boards or 3/4" sheet goods, I found that 3/4" plywood, being just shy of actual 3/4" you are likely to get bumps or screw tips coming out, so had to run out and buy a box of 1" screws. All in all, if you just need a jig for one or occasional projects using mostly 3/4" material, this one is fine if you are willing to put some time into getting it set up. If you are going to be using it a lot, it is probably worth investing in a better jig.
