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Introduction

Welcome to our review of the Garrett Wade Univeral Assembly Jig. Even though I get a lot of help from Luzimar, I'm often left to my own devices while working in the shop. Assembling large cabinets can be a real hassle. I have relied on several shop-made right angle blocks that I clamp to the carcass sides to hold them in place as I assemble the cabinet, and they generally work fine. However, the Garrett Wade Universal Assembly Jig has been a "high-tech" temptation for quite awhile.

Finally, while recently assembling (and struggling with) several large carcasses I decided to purchase the jig. I used it for the first time to assemble a small chest of drawers. I was generally dissapointed with the performance of the jig. At the risk of breaking the cardinal rule, if you have nothing good to say, don't say anything.....

Garrett Wade Disclaimer Letter

My first indication that perhaps the Universal Assembly Jig was not everything I thought it would be hit me when I received a disclaimer letter from Garrett Wade regarding the Universal Assembly Jig. The letter really infuriated me. I replied to the letter and have not received a response. The thought that Garrett Wade thinks that woodworkers and cabinetmakers would actually believe this drivel says a lot....Here is the unedited text of that letter:

From: Garrett Wade Customer Service
To: Customers for the Universal Assembly Jig

You may notice that the main extrusion of this Jig is not exactly 90 degrees - even though it does look square. Occasionaly a customer will raise questions as to why this angle has not been made to a precise 90 degree square tolerance - such as with an Engineer's Square. This tool has not been designed as a large square. It is an Assembly Jig. The main angle has deliberately been manufactured at slightly more than 90 degrees for good reasons that are both practical and functional.

1.)First, the Practical Reason: If the manufacturing tolerances were to require a precise angle, (whether 90 degrees or some other angle), the cost of achieving this goal for an extrusion this large would put the price of the Jig out of reach of all but the best equipped professional Engineering shops.

2.)Second, the Functional Woodworking Reason: Although, much of the time you do want to achieve 90 degree squareness in your carcass construction, there are those times when an angle slightly off 90 degrees suits the installation better (perhaps 91 or 89 degrees). If the Jig were made to an angle exact of 90 degrees (or a lesser angle), it would not be as easy to adapt the jig to those specific cicumstances. Of course, if a precise 90 degree is required, it is very easy to accomplish this.

For both reasons above, the Universal Assembly Jig has been designed the way it has, and is supplied with the two adjustment Cams per section. If it is a 90 degree angle that you are after, a quick check with your normal-sized shop square will do the trick, is easy to do and will take only seconds.

This Assembly Jig has received a lot of praise from woodworkers, and we hope that it suits your needs as well.

Garrett Wade Customer Service

With the letter in mind, here are excerpts from the Garrett Wade catalog, regarding the Universal Assembly Jig (underlines added):

The more we gain experience with the versatility of this tool, the more we appreciate its incredible range of application - in the shop or on a job site. It allows true, one-man assembly work with machine square accuracy and gives you assembly confidence in circumstances where it would otherwise be virtually impossible.

Does this sales-hype not imply that the Universal Assembly Jig provides "machine square accuracy"! And the two underlined points of the disclaimer letter are absolute drivel. Here are my general comments:

• What good is a cabinet assembly jig if it does not hold the work pieces square?
• My response to their "practical" reason: If you cannot do it right, don't do it!
• My response to their "functional" reason: It would be much easier to shim the unit out of square than into square! For the one percent of the time you would want it out of square, why would you want to go through the aggravation of shimming it into square the other 99% of the time! Garrett Wade must think cabinetmakers are idiots.

Actual Performance

I have used the jig twice. In my opinion it offered no advantage to the tried-and-true shop-made assembly squares cabinetmakers have been using for years. As clearly stated above, the jig is not square. Not even close to square. In fact, the two jigs don't even match in their unsquareness. You would think that the manufacturer would pair up two units from the same length of extrusion. Evidently not.

As the Garrett Wade letter stated, you can use their cams to "square" the sides. But this is a hassle. Imagine trying to hold a large carcass side, a square, and at the same time adjusting the cheap plastic cam. Furthermore, the jig is teetering on 2 x 4's as per the instructions. I ended up using shims when assembling my first carcass, but the squaring process wasted a lot of time. I must say, once I squared everything up, the jig did support the cabinet sides quite nicely as I fitted the drawer supports.

The sales hype implies you can use the jigs to assemble drawer boxes. But after thinking it through with a drawer box to be assembled (eight of them to be exact), I quickly came to the conclusion that there was no possible benefit in using the jig to assemble "dovetailed" drawers. Perhaps it would help to assemble drawers using dowels or pocket-hole screws, but two problems arise: 1)The jig is not square! 2)The jig orientation is wrong for assembling drawer boxes with screws.

When considering using the jig to assemble cabinet sides to face frames I uncovered another fly in the ointment. The Universal Jig extrusions seem to be manufactured for the Donmar carcass building method, a method that has some merit but does not fit my carcass building system. (The jig comes with a Donmar booklet regarding their carcass building system.) The problem is that the jig is built with an offset in the corner, evidently to accomodate the Donmar method. However this offset is troublesome when trying to align a carcass side to a face frame, unless you want the side inset.

The bottom line is that the Universal Assembly Jig has proved more trouble than value.

The Bottom Line

The Universal Assembly Jig is an absolute waste of money for my shop and cabinetmaking system. It may have some value for those building cabinets using the "Donmar" system. The fact the jig is intentionally (or otherwise) out of square makes it of little use in my shop. Period.

Rating:

out of 5!

Alternatives

I suggest you make your own assembly jigs, similar to those shown on the right. Make four of them and you'll be set for virtually any assembly task. The components in green are made from hardwood, approximately 3/4" x 3" x 12" and the yellow component is 3/4" MDF or plywood. Make sure the MDF component is square. I dado the base (green) components to accept the MDF panel.

If you want to buy accuracy, try the Jevons 3D Square (an Aluminum Setup Square). I purchased a set of four have used them extensively for carcass assembly and for miscellaneous jigs. You can reach Jevons at:

Jevons Tool Company
P.O. Box 3405
Kansas City, KS 66103
913.384.0023

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