Hey that sounds awesome! Don't know what a maconnery ruler is, but I feel your pain about straight cuts with a jigsaw. Lots of clamping on a chunk of spare wood

Hey that sounds awesome! Don't know what a maconnery ruler is, but I feel your pain about straight cuts with a jigsaw. Lots of clamping on a chunk of spare wood as a "guide" and even when you do that, if you try to push the saw through the wood like it always warps on the free end, so you have to just be patient and do thick boards slowly -- which means that you need another chunk of spare wood for the saw to sit on as you are starting out the cut. (Or only cut through thin wood so that you never notice the warp.) I think you could make a case that the most versatile and powerful tool any woodworker has at her disposal is her clamps.