Dovetail jigs

[lou sansone]

I agree with most of the other posts about fiddling and having to remember how you did it last time. The one jig that I never have forgotten how to use and really does not take a lot of time to set up is the "hand cut" jig. No I wouldn't suggest it for kitchens and other high volume box stuff, but for the 18th century stuff that I do, it never seems to be a problem

lou

[Jack Wood]

Well I don't feel like a klutz so much anymore! I thought that I was just not getting it right and apparently there is a large curve on working these jigs. Richard you hit the nail when you wrote about remembering what it was you did the last time around. One of the most frustrating things with the jet jig is the black plastic guides used to set the jig. They have two set screws and and as a result if you aren't real careful one side can be out or in from the other causing your dovetail to slope. I really don't do much furniture making, and the small boxes I do make I can dovetail on my scroll saw. As to the Akeda and more costly jigs, well $400 for it is way above the payoff ratio for me. Thanks for everyones input, this board is great!

[Ralph Barhorst]

Yesterday I glued up four drawers that I am making for a chest. The drawers sides are 1/2" x 4-1/2" birch.

The photos show the jigs that I built to do the half blind dovetails. One jig makes the dovetails and the other makes the pins. The jigs were cut on the tablesaw and the exact dimensions were not critical. The most important thing is to make everything symetrical about the center. The wood pieces are 6-1/2" wide and I nailed a piece of scrap wood to each side to ensure that the drawer sides were centered when I routed them. The blue tape was my adjustment when cutting the pins.

I routed them on my router table using a 1/2" 14 degree bit with a 5/8" collar.

Jig cost was nothing. It was all made from scrap.

It took three trys to get the jigs to work right. But once it was setup, the joints were completed quickly.

[Frank Martin]

I too tried a Leigh jig and was thinking about the FMT. Then I found out about the Woodrat. After working with it about 6 hours to familiarize myself with how it works for different functions, I decided to sell the Leigh, because I could not justify the real estate for it. Even though it takes a little to understand how it works, Woodrat is an excellent platform, especially for hobby use. You can make all kinds of joints with complete freedom from jig-bushing-template limitations. Other than dadoes and rabbets on large projects, I cut all my joinery on Woodrat.

[Michael Gibbons]

I have the Keller Journeyman. It works like a charm as long as you can handle 1 size spacing. Also you can buy smaller bits for thinner wood.

[Glen Blanchard]

If you want a fiddle-free jig, check out the Keller. I never do test joints, even though on different jobs I use wood of different thickness.

Why do you suppose the bit height is not as critical with the Keller as with other jigs?

[Jamie Buxton]

Why do you suppose the bit height is not as critical with the Keller as with other jigs?

The Keller is different from the jigs I used when I first started. Those jigs cut the drawer side and drawer front simultaneously, and the only way to get the bit height right is trial and error -- hence lots of test joints. In contrast, the Keller cuts the side and the front separately, and there is a very easy way to set the bit height. If you're cutting the front, you put a piece of the side stock down on a flat surface, put the router down on top of the side stock, and plunge the router down until the bit touches the flat surface. That's it -- the bit height is set. It is so simple and reliable that even I can't louse it up.

[John Stevens]

Jig cost was nothing. It was all made from scrap.

Ralph, my hat's off to you regarding your clever jig and the fine results you got. The only reservation I have (and this is a recurring issue with me) is that material costs are typically small compared to the cost of our time. No matter how young we are, time is always running out. It's truly our most precious resource. If someone enjoys making jigs and fixtures for their own sake, more power to 'em. But if the motivation is to cut costs on the way to completing a furniture project, it's often a false economy to DIY instead of buy, once we account for the cost of our time.

[Jim Becker]

I'm with Ted, I keep the "best of the best" of the test cuts as templates for future setups and in that way, I pretty much only need to do one quick test on a new project most of the time...and like Per and others, I'm a Leigh D4 user.

[Allen Bookout]

Has anyone tried the Porter Cable 4210 or 4212 dovetail kit? It looks pretty straight forward but I am new to dovetails so I am probably missing something. 4210 at about $100 and the 4212 at about $150, according to April issue of Workbench magazine, is sure a lot less than the high end jigs. I realize that it is not very versitle but looks like that it might do the basic job. I do see one other possible downside as it requires a bit, 7 degrees as I recall, that is only sold by PC as far as I know. Any comments?

[jack duren]

jack wood..."For more money do the higher end jigs simplify this process? What I was expexting was a jig where you just put board A in one part and board B in the other and route away".......

sounds to me like you need an OMNIJIG... ive got both the leigh and the omni. but i wouldnt trade one omni for 2 leighs......jack

[Kirk (KC) Constable]

Is 7 degrees an odd size? Jesada used to sell a whole bunch of different sizes, and I suspect Infiniti does the same. I have the PC4112, which has done just fine for me.

As to fiddling with the depth...I finally bought a dedicated router for dovetailing and just leave it set up. Eventually, I'll have to replace the bit, but until then I just mount the pieces and cut away.

KC

[Allen Bookout]

Thanks, Allen

[Keith Christopher]

I think I got so involved in talking about how versatile the 'Rat is that I didn't actually address the point of the thread. Alas, the 'Rat does come with a high quotient of "fiddlin'". I've gone through a substantial quantity of scraps learning how to get a moderately high degree of quality with the contraption. Now that my confort zone has been reached, I'm confident to put a good piece of wood into the 'Rat's clamping device. It is definitely not an "out of the box dovetail cutting wonder"..... at least for a person of my level of experience. There was a time that I questioned my sanity for the price of the WoodRat. Now that I'm accustomed to its perculiarities, setup is quick and quality is more than acceptable. I am, at this point, quite satisfied with the device and my productivitiy with it.

I'm glad to read this. I've always wondered about the wood rat. I think from your postings I am going to not get it. I just need a no frills DT jig, easy to use and a nice fit.


Keith

Oh on a side note Ron, your sig quote is incomplete.

"This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou cans't not be false to any man. " said by Polonius as his son Laertes prepares to travel. (of course Hamlet which was written by Wm shakespeare so really he said it.)

Sorry my minor was in Lit.

[Dev Emch]

After reading the posts, its clear that there are many ways to skin the cat which is a good thing.

First of all, I have to say that I do tails two ways. For kitchen drawer use and quick knock out jobs, I use the D-4 jig. When it really counts, I do them by hand with chisels, marking gages, and so on.

When you first begin to do these, you often start with the router based solutions. The focus is just to get something to work and not understanding the why of why it works. This makes setting up jigs a bit difficult and subject to trail and error. Just remember that there are two major solutions to keep straight. Through Tails and Lapped or Half Blind Tails. They are way different when using a router.

The first major problem you will encounter is the half pin placement dilema. Any of your fixed spacing jigs such as a keller or standard porter cable omnijig, etc. will have issues here. Your work may not be an integral multiple of the spacing of your particular jig. This means that you have to design your item with regard to the jig or your half pin placement will be wrong. So variable pin placement is vital.

The next item is the number of tails your using. You can always tell if a dodds tailer was at work because the drawer side is plum loaded with rough fitting dovetails based on its spindle spacing. On fine furniture, that is a sure turn off to any woodworking person. Your tails should be much larger than those done by a machine. So adjustability of tail width is vital.

Very fine antique furniture not only has large prominent tails, but they are often non-symetrical. A typical drawer will have 2 to 4 tails depending on size. If I need to hide a drawer bottom dado groove, the ability to readjust the lower tail is a good thing.

On high quality drawers, the drawer frequently has four sides and not five. This means that the drawer front has to be done accurately and that it contains the lap tails or half blind tails of the drawer. Doing it this way is much harder and often forces you to use half blinds on the front and through tails on the back.

But when using router jigs to make tails, you learn that the two sets of tails, half blind and through, use different tail angles. The finger angle on those fingers on your Leigh D-4 are no accident. They are designed for the typical through angle. So now, you have one angle at the front and another angle at the back. Those of us who like things simple and neat have an issue with this.

The reason there are so many different angle dovetail bits today is simple. In the half blind example, the router jig, the router and the dovetail bit are solving an equation literally. Because of how the jig is built and the fingers position in the half blind mode, there is only one solution for each major thickness. Even if you use slightly different thicknesses of stock, your depth of cut is fixed. You cannot selectively choose the depth of your half blind socket. That has been choosen for you by virtue of the bit your using. Move it up or down and you change your fit by changing the solution to this equation. And if your stock gets significantly thicker, you need to sink the socket deeper. You do this by changing your bit. You select one that has a deeper depth of cut but you also change your tail angle.

Most jigs are also limited to the size of tails they can cut. So its harder to cut those hunkin tails found in heavy timbers such as the skirt boards on a work bench.

Another flaw to jigs is the needle pin. Needle pins were used heavily in 18th century furniture both here and in england. A router jig cannot cut a needle pin because the support neck of the bit is to thick. Often, its only thick enough to allow a back saw to get into there. So most jigs can only cut half of this application... you get to cut the other half.

How about multi pins or hounds teeth. If these are through tails, then its possible to set up and cut these in two different setups. I have never done this on the Leigh D-4, but in theory, I think it can be done. As long as your tail angle remains the same which in a through application is a valid assumption.

So there are dozens of variations to the dovetail joint. Due entirely to laziness and speed, I have began using the Leigh D-4. But I am not at all proud of this. The reason I chose the D-4 was because I can set it up in such a way as to best mimick hand cut dovetails in the first place. If your doing lots of kitchen work, then the D-4 is a great way of knocking off a lot of drawers in a hurry.

But if I am doing it for myself, then I do it by hand. In fact, I hand dovetail both wood and metal. Metal is actually much easier to dovetail than wood because it is so forgiving. The metal tails are splayed both ways. This is done by cutting one set loose and straight. On assembly, you smash these loose and straights with a hammer in a process called peening. It mashes the metal into the nooks and crannies making the joint virtally invisable if your using the same metal for both sides. Its cooler than heck when you see brass and steel dovetailed together. Again, the angles for this are different than those used for wood.

That brings me to my last complaint about routing tails. Why do we need so many different dovetail bits with different angles? You dont. For wood, the old rule is this. For softwoods, use a 1:6 slope. For hardwoods, use a 1:8 slope. This applies if your doing through tails or blind tails. There is no equation solving by a super router computer gizmo here. Basic. Simple. Easy to remember. But it takes time to do dozens of drawers. And as i said, if its super high end or if its for me, I do it by hand. If its for a general customer in a kitchen, I use the Liegh D-4.