Joinery Tools

Second-fix joinery is where a build starts to feel finished. Skirting, architrave, internal doors, kitchen units, and laminated worktops all arrive as raw lengths and flat sheets. The joinery tools below are how a carpenter cuts, fits, and finishes them so the gaps disappear.

Most homeowners managing an extension will not own all of these. The expensive jigs are kit a kitchen fitter brings to the job. But understanding what each tool does means you can read a quote properly, spot when a fitter is cutting corners, and tell the difference between a worktop joint that's been butted and silicone-bridged versus one that's been routed to a mason's mitre.

Where to start

The worktop jig is the one to read before the kitchen goes in. The corner joint on a laminate worktop is the first thing anyone notices, and whether it is routed and bolted or butted and filled with silicone is decided by the fitter's kit. The hinge jig and wood chisel guides are worth reading together if internal doors are being hung, because the router cuts the recess and the chisel squares its corners.

The guides, grouped by job

Kitchen worktops. The worktop jig guides the router through a mason's mitre or butt joint, and the router bits guide explains the cutters, shank sizes and profiles that do the cutting. The worktop bolts that pull the joint together are covered in the kitchen units materials.

Doors and hinges. The hinge jig lets a router cut matching hinge recesses on a door and its frame, and the wood chisel finishes each recess and pares joints by hand.

Trim and finishing. The nail punch sinks pin heads in skirting and architrave below the surface so filler and paint can hide them.

Where these fit in the build

Worktop material and joint layout are settled when you are sourcing units and worktops. The jigs, router and chisels come out at kitchen installation, and the nail punch is used wherever trim goes on, including after flooring when the skirting is fixed.