g'day folks Uncle knackers here now look I very rarely do product reviews but when maska reached out and said hey can you give us an unbiased review on our new M2 professional pocket hole jig I had to say yes this thing is an absolute beast and you need to see it now the first thing I noticed when pulling it out of the box is just how heavy this thing is the actual body of the pocket hole jig itself is made entirely out of solid aluminum which makes it feel absolutely Rock Solid the second thing I noticed is just how good this thing looks now look I know you can't judge a book by its cover but in this case there may be an exception polished chrome fittings with a gun metal finish on the body and those gold knurled knobs that's a bit tricky to say just gives it that professional high-end look and the only plastic parts that I can see are the clamping pad the dust spout the covering on the push-pull toggle clamp handle and the drill depth guide foreign [Music] difference between the M2 and the previous model are the stabilizer bars which come with support blocks that simply slot into the holes on the side of the unit now initially I thought they were absolutely useless they were loosen the hole they kept sliding out and I couldn't see how to tighten them in place I thought it was a huge design floor then I saw these I located two hex screws under that dust belt which once tightened secured those bars tightly in place [Music] problem solved perhaps I should have read the instructions nah instructions now once I got that technical issue all sorted these bars with those support blocks are awesome and they serve two purposes the first purpose is to stabilize the workpiece that you're working on especially if it's a long piece [Music] turn those support blocks around so they become stop blocks which means that you can do repeat pocket hole measurements on every board [Music] foreign [Music] pocket holes there's nothing worse than when The Jig is moving all over the shop so to rectify that the masker M2 has two options for fixing the jig in place now the first option is to just simply screw it down and as you can see I've screwed mine to a piece of plywood that you can easily pick up carry and store or you could just screw it down to your workbench the second option is to utilize the t-track slot found on the underside of The Jig that you can clamp down to your workbench with a track clamp which I currently don't have but I think is a really good design feature if we take a closer look you'll notice that the jig has a bunch of measurements that come in Imperial as well as metric which is great for us Aussies that acts as a thickness guide Joe just simply place your board on the thickness scale and as you can see this board is 19 millimeters or three quarters of an inch thick now that's going to tell us exactly what depth we need to set our drill bit to and the masker also has this ingenious drill depth guide which just simply fits into that hole there just like that and I'll explain how this works in just a tick the drill depth from the massacre is a very simple process come around to the front of the jig and adjust the work piece thickness scale to the thickness of the board which in this case is 19 millimeters or three quarters of an inch and once again we have Imperial as well as metric measurements which keeps everybody happy that deserves a big thumbs up and then all you need to do is to place the drill inside that bush and have it rest on top of that drill depth guide down here making sure that the collar is loose and then watch this as I rotate this guide the drill bit Falls lower and lower depending on the thickness of the wood now we want 19 millimeters or three quarters of an inch so one more turn and boom that's us there now just simply tighten that collar onto the drill bit and you're good to go now the only issue I have with this guide is that it's a really important part of The Jig so you need to keep track of it it's fairly small it's not attached so I think if you're not too careful it'd be pretty easy to lose which is why I made this to safely store the guide with all the other bits and Bobs when not in use since I'm doing a review type video check this out the other day I was on the iPad and came across a review for a restaurant on the moon of all places apparently fantastic views but uh no atmosphere I'll get my coat [Music] oh no drilling pocket holes creates a lot of waste and dust so it's really important to be able to get rid of all that stuff without too much fuss which is why the masker has this dust Port attached to the front of the jig that you can easily attach a shop back to you can see here just how powerful that sanction is and I only have an El Cheapo dodgy old shop vac so it's very effective at removing any dust or debris that you produce from making pocket holes [Music] and as you can see that's as clean as a whistle now just a quick tip if you don't intend to use the shop vac remove the dust Port otherwise it's just going to get full of dust and debris [Music] now once again the quality of the masker shines through with this clamping system construction Wise It's very solid without any Springs and you simply adjust the pressure applied to the board by screwing the clamping pad in and out it also has a locking nut that keeps the rod at a set distance and stops it from going in and out having now used this for a while I have to say that I really do like the action of this clamp but if somehow without over complicating it masker can make this Auto adjustable that would be awesome got to say though it does feel good with the M2 as well as the M1 by taking out these four bolts you can then remove that guide block which then gives you a portable jig which means you get two jigs for the price of one now I think that's a pretty cool feature now the base plate that comes with The Jig when attached to the guide block has a lip that you can fit up hard against the work piece so that you can then adjust to the correct board thickness preventing you from drilling the pocket hole too deep [Music] now the guide block itself is really strong once you finger tighten those cool looking gold knobs on either side of the block there is no way that this thing is budging which means there's no chance of it slipping Without You noticing which is a really good thing to know so the M2 with its fancy stabilizing bars in my opinion is great value for money for starters it looks fantastic and the build quality is outstanding it does what it says on the tin and then the top it all off it comes with a lifetime guarantee so for all that I think the M2 deserves the uncle knackers Big Ticket approval now if you've made it this far and you'd like to know a bit more about pocket hole joinery make sure you check out my seven expert pocket hole tips video which should be up on the screen over there alrighty after all that I think I need a cup of tea so till next time be good be
