As we saw with the Hungarian dude making cutting boards, when you need to crank out the same item thousands of times, you'll make a jig to speed your work. And if you've got a workbench like Ron Paulk's, you'll use the dog holes to clamp stop-blocks, straightedges and fixtures. But Woodpeckers Inc., the Ohio-based manufacturer of small-run woodworking tools, is betting that there's a class of craftspeople who haven't gotten to bench dogs yet. For them they've created the X-Mat Assembly System.

The X-Mat is a simple 12”×12” square made of chemical-resistant resin and gridded up with X-shaped sockets. By interlocking multiple X-mats and dropping in a bunch of Woodpeckers' accessories—L-Supports, box clamps, anchors and painting fingers—the idea is that you can quickly create temporary jig set-ups for assembly. My first thought was "Who would buy this?" but after watching the video, I must admit there are a lot of times I could've used something like this:

As an added benefit, this seems useful for someone using shared shop space (or those of you working off of kitchen tables and the like) as everything breaks down for storage. The only thing that's giving me pause is the price: It's 50 bucks for a 2’×2’ grid and four L-Supports, though they've got a the-more-you-buy-the-more-you-save thing going on.