He's a "Carpenter not an Actor" How quick we are to criticise, you film yourself for 45 minutes and see how many times you repeat yourself, I found the video to be extremely informative and well filmed & edited, thanks to all involved
I hired a 2KW router with worktop jig, bought a set of joining bolts along with a brand new 1/2" router cutter and followed this video to the letter taking my time to double check everything and the results were perfect. Excellent video
You Sir are a steely eyed kitchen fitter! I feel very comfortable with your explanations and tips, you make it sound so easy. If I were 50 years younger I would consider myself really fortunate to be your apprentice. Thank you so much.
Have just installed 4 x super large mango bench tops we cut and thicknessed from a 102 yr old tree here in Far North Queensland Australia. The laptop's been playing on one side of the new kitchen with you excellent video while we cut and routered on the other side. So the last two days it's been 'watch'...pause...measure...'watch'...pause...measure again... 'cut & router'....'watch'...pause...etc. Its a shame that we had to pay $350 for a jig we'll likely to only have to use once but I have to tell you, your advice and commentary has been mint and the plumber arrives tomorrow to connect the stove, sink and oven into our fabulously fitted bench tops. Only comment I'd suggest is to let everyone know that your excellent method works equally well for timber slab tops as it does for your laminates in the vid. Fan-friggin-tastic as we say here in Oz - many thanks - Shaun
A nice clean job done with ease. I myself am a chippy, but never seem to just go from start to finish without any problems. You can never know to much and will always learn new tricks. good vid
was looking for a heel toe vid for some French doors, come across this and found myself watching til the end. Excellent demo, BASICALLY a true pro. Keep it up lads
Been watching instructional videos for years doing my own home DIY, but by far, this is the clearest and simplest I've seen with so much detail and real tradesman's eye and tips. I know this has all already been said in the other comments here, but thank you very much, subscribed.
Hey Tommy, enjoy watching as you really give a lot of detail, I use a "Ratchet" spanner for tightening the dog bolts, I find it much quicker and easy on the wrists as we're not getting younger mate! It's good that you show the work in real time too cause most clients don't realize the work ,time and knowledge behind negotiating the peanuts Tradesmen earn!
The guide bush runs in the jig with a bit of slack as the groove in the jig is normally about 8-10mm wider than the guide bush, so its always best to make the first cuts on the side of the jig groove away from the joint, and then make the final pass on the side of the jig closest to the joint, makes a much neater cut. I've never used PVA, always used clear varnish on the raw chipboard in the joint to seal it against water ingress, 3 or 4 coats, then squeeze in some colorfill to finish.
Just done my first worktop mitre job. Replacing tops in a u shaped kitchen. Nightmare! But thanks to watching Dave explain it and having a practise run beforehand it went pretty damn well! Thank you Dave. Keep the bids coming.
When cutting from the back of a wood worktop you need to clamp another board under your cut line nice and tight, otherwise you risk blowing out the wood fibres as you plunge through it resulting in ugly tearout on the visible surface of your worktop. Generally its better to cut with the entire worktop supported on a scrap board than hanging on saw horses as your offcut could snap off under its own weight before the last cut and make a right balls of the cut. Also, its pretty standard to use a biscuit cutter to place some mating biscuits when joining to solve that alignment issue when bolting.
Great video!...clear guidance....I was cringing when the hammer was being used directly on worktop ( always use a block )....to flush the joint....video shows how long and tedious it is to fit worktops....don't just happen....nice one....
Bloody brilliant. Can't find anyone to do the worktops in our kitchen and this has given me the confidence to give it a go. Will probably do a few dozens mitres on the old ones first!
Excuse my language but Fucking brilliant video. I've been in the kitchen trade as a designer for over twenty years and I've been told how its done but never really understood. Just watched this and it makes perfect sense now. Genius, thanks. Right, what were gonna do now (ha ha ha) is watch a few more.
Absolutely brilliant - very clear with explanation. This really helped me a lot. I have done one worktop before and watched this again as a reminder for another one I have to do.Thank you very much.
Great explanation and demonstration, extremely clear video, first thing I was thinking watching that spanner work was that, like Max said, I'd use a ratchet ring spanner to run those nuts down, it would be a lot quicker and easier than an open end spanner, especially if you're doing joints often.
A couple of notes - A small gap between wall and boards gives you some breathing room if there is movement in house and or require a very slight adjust from error. Probably try and use a 0.7 - 0.9 mechanical pencil to keep lines sharp .. the fat lines from blunt pencils make for bad errors. Great video ..
I'm Dave not Iestyn, he's my son lol thank you Tommy for taking the time to put this video together. I'm a time served Carpenter, but I never do many Kitchen butt and scribe work?? this has given me ease of mind as I lost the instructions for my Trend jig. Can't fault you mate!!
Excellent video....The guy is very good at his trade and at making videos Perfect! Help get rid of the Cowboys do you're research and use one of the good guys like this one...
This is so well done. Logically explained with little tips. I would love to work with this guy for 12 months. I could learn so much. Would a ratchet 10mmm spanner make life easier ? Also, is it practical to glue softwood jaws onto the C clamps to save fiddling with cardboard ?
Hi, thanks for the informative video. Two questions: Why not use the jig's sliding gauge to determine the width of cut in the female?? Also, when marking the male joint, why not put the male end on top of the female cut top, supported at one end, then just scribe from beneath the worktop? Cheers Dave, Tony
Thanks so much for this excellent and professional video. Well planned and good photography. I have to buy a router yeah? I will now watch you cutting the sink hole. The last time I cut one upside down and lifted it up on my back to install, it broke. That's the last time I remember crying. So hopefully this time I can put it in position, and then cut the hole from the top. My biggest problem seems to be fitting the sink and drainer in between the support bars of the base units. Thankz smuchly and God Bless.
My only criticism with the video is the lack of hearing protection. I've spent years attached to routers and they're bloody loud. Other than that, I can't fault it, cracking vid
Wouldn't make sense to cut the bulk of the material out with a jigsaw after you have your jig mounted to prevent any laminate chip out. Nice job ... I'm just thinking of cutter pull with the heavy cut. Nice video. Thanks.
Thanks for a very informative video, when I first seen it was on for 43 mins I thought "how the heck can he talk about mitring a worktop for that long" but the time just flew in, very well explained and hopefully I will be putting your shared knowledge into practice, thumbs up for your camera man too 👍
Just a thought. Once ur setup ... why not go into the jig slot and remove most of that material with a jig saw. Would save a lot of time and wear and tare on the cutter bit.
Excellent video, thanks! However I can't help but notice how the sink bowl looks to be in a terrible position to use every day!! (half way in the corner of the work top) Home owners decision I'm sure, but it just looks very awkward to me.
Nearly 1.5 million views, as I type. Just hope this guy is getting some £$love£$. Artisan. My DW625EK only gets the dust blown off the box 3 or 4 times a year.
Thank you, I found this a very helpful guide to cutting in a worktop. I was able to follow the basic principles and successfully mitre together two worktops, twice for different rooms. I did have some issue with the visible edges on the surfaces chipping slightly where the cutter went along, on both the top surface and (more seriously) on the front profile edge, despite all my efforts to prevent this. The only other thing I would suggest is to not drop the router down too much on each cutting pass because this increases the chance of the router going off track as it struggles to cut too much material. Top helpful video though
I could really have used this video when I was fitting up my kitchen counters. I had to do a miter and a cutout for a corner mounted sink. I got it done but a fixture like that one would have made it so much easier! Where can I get one of those?
Just looked it up. At over 500 USD it is way too rich for my blood. I think I could make one with a little head scratching but don't know if it would be as accurate. If I were a professional who did this every day, I would definitely spring for the money.
A decent video but a few comments to improve it. You don't need to use a tape measure and combination square to set out the length of the female mitre joint when using a Trend jig. All you do is insert the bushes in the red coloured holes of the jig (with the red dot uppermost) and lay the jig ACROSS the width of the male worktop that is being joined and then use the adjustable clamp to set the Trend jig to the width of that worktop. Then removing the bushes, but leaving the adjustable clamp in place, the Trend jig is set up as normal to cut the female joint - the adjustable clamp being tight up against the end of the worktop.This sets up the length of the female joint perfectly and can be used for any width of worktop and eliminates the possibility of errors when measuring. Other makes of jigs have the common widths of worktop marked on them and you inset a bush in the appropriate hole. When marking the corresponding male joint rather than try to transfer the marked line from one side to another as shown in this video simply position the female worktop in its correct position and lay the male worktop on top; you can then simply mark the position of the cut on the correct face from underneath (from inside the cupboard). Also the router cutter is 12.7mm (1/2") not 12mm. When making the first passes through the worktop hold the router so it runs on the edge of the jig channel on the side furthest away from the worktop, thereby you remove the bulk of the material and leaving just 2mm or so to remove when the router is ran along the jig channel on its front edge to give the finished cut. Don't try and remove too much material in each pass of the router, 10mm maximum and use a new cutter for no more than two joints; chipboard is so aggressive - I use a rota-tip replacement cutter. Thanks.
he did say that the jig he was using was for 900mm wide tops, that's why he had to mark the centre lines and move the jig. He was marking a 600mm wide tops.
You misunderstand the point Kevan. The Trend jig does worktops up to 900mm wide and any size below that. You don't need to mark centre lines but use the adjustable clamp that comes with the jig to set the length of the female joint as I described abovt. The point being the more you mark out with a tape measure and try to calculate offsets the more room for error. Use the jig in the way it was intended to be used by Trend eliminates this. Read the instructions on this jig that are available to download if you need a clearer understanding.
George Thompson if you watch the video carefully you see that the cutouts when he lays the jig on top of the worktop are actually wider spaced than the worktop it lays on. So it's you who missed the point not me he would have to move the jig to fit the 600 mm tops
Kevan the jig is designed to fit ALL widths of worktop up to 900 mm wide so clearly the jig is bigger than the 616 mm tops he's cutting. You use the adjustable clamp (not shown in this video) that comes with the jig that enable you to set-up the jig to cut the length of the female joint without all the faffing of measuring and using combination squares. My point being, a) it's much quicker to use the adjustable clamp, maybe takes 30 seconds, b) there's no risk of making an error by measuring. I can only refer you to the Trend website if you require further explanation. As I said it's a decent video. Thanks
