Most companies who sell jigs offer a number of different models. I still don’t have an easy answer to the "jig question." However, I have managed to conduct some jig research. To assist me, I gathered together a few members of my family and we conducted "The Battle of the Jigs."
Basically, we spent a fun afternoon around the dinning room table doing usability testing on three different jigs. This article discusses how we went about conducting the test, each participant's favorite jig of the ones used, and the final results of our test (or battle).
The Jigs in Battle
I selected three different jigs from Wig Jig for the battle: the Olympus, the Olympus-lite, and the Delphi. The Olympus is the largest of the three jigs at 5 inches diameter. The Olympus-lite is smaller at 3" x 4". The pegs are the same sized as those used for the larger Olympus, so basically it’s a scaled down version of the Olympus. The Delphi is designed for thin wire and is a 3 inch square. The holes in the Delphi are closer together than in the other jigs.
The Battle Participants
The family members who participated all had varying levels of wire skills, and none had ever used a wire jig before.
Terry: My sister is around my age and has been making jewelry for a few years. She mainly works with beads, but she has played around with wire also and used it in her jewelry on occasion.
Floretta: My mother has made some jewelry, though not wire jewelry. She has always been pretty artistic. Her specialty is sewing.
Ashley: My niece is a few years shy of being a teenager and has inherited the family’s artistic genes. At the time of our battle, her current project was an embroidered pillow case.
(Read on to find out how the battle began.)
