Saturday I went out shopping for a new dovetail jig. I had read and read on the net about so many different ones that I did not know what I really wanted and started with an open mind. On the way, I stopped a fellow woodworker's place and he showed me his Incra fence set up on his router table and how that worked so that added another option to the list of choices. First stop was a Rockler store where they had the Leigh jigs, both the D4 and the D1600. Kind of impressive and I wanted something that would do other things besides fixed spacing half blinds. Unfortunately, no one in the store knew anything about dovetail jigs. (The guy who did had the day off)
Next stop was a Woodcraft. They had the Leigh D4 and the Akeda and they had someone who knew dovetail jigs. He showed me the Akeda and how it worked and how easy it was to set up and use and to make a long story short, I bought one. (It was on sale at $70 off, too).
After I got it home, I read the instructions and looked it over and Sunday, decided to try my luck. I had a couple of drawers waiting to be assembled, just needing to have the dovetails cut and so after one test cut on some pine, went for it on the real thing in oak. Great fit on the first cut, never did make any changes. It worked right out of the box. My old cheapie would cut a dovetail only after 20 or 30 test cuts and adjustments and then it might not be right. The repeatability was a selling point. It has 1/8" increments in the spacing and they have clear indents so going back is easy, as I found out. One drawer was perfect, but the sides on the second had been left long to cut down later and I for got and did the dovetails on the over sized piece. After everything had been put away, I had to redo 2 of the tail cuts. A ten minute setup, redo the two cuts and another perfect fit. This works so well it is really fun to use. I highly recommend it.
CPeter
