Router Table Router

[Brice Burrell]

Thanks Tom, I think the super jig is going to have a real impact on the dovetail jig market.

 

[mntbighker]

What is the party line on the DT jig vs systems like Incra that claim "who needs a dovetail jig with this kind of accuracy?" For the record the Leigh stuff looks very impressive to me but I have never used a dovetail jig. It's interesting that they seem to be one of the only companies using 8mm bits. And they show Festool routers in their ads so they must be doing something right

--Mark

 

[Lou Miller]

What is the party line on the DT jig vs systems like Incra that claim "who needs a dovetail jig with this kind of accuracy?" For the record the Leigh stuff looks very impressive to me but I have never used a dovetail jig. It's interesting that they seem to be one of the only companies using 8mm bits. And they show Festool routers in their ads so they must be doing something right

--Mark

I think everyone is different in this area, you have to find what works best for you. I personally have a Jointech fence (same basic thing as the Incra) and I also have a Leigh jig. The Leigh basically just collects dust sitting on a shelf because I don't use it (one of these days I'll probably sell it). I do quite a bit of dovetailed drawers and do them all on my Jointech. Just me personally, but the Leigh, while a very nice tool, can't even come close to the Jointech in terms of speed. I'll typically clamp about 18 parts together and batch cut them all at once. There's absolutely no difference in terms of how well the joints fit between the two systems. I even do variable spaced DTs on my Jointech. Even an operation like that is much faster in my experience. Now maybe others have found ways to speed things up with the Leigh, but I sure haven't. I've done over 100 dovetailed drawers in one day on my Jointech without even breaking a sweat.

There are plenty of options out there that work quite well. I've found what works best for me. Your experience, and everyone else's, might be totally different from that of my own though.

 

[Dave Ronyak]

What is the party line on the DT jig vs systems like Incra that claim "who needs a dovetail jig with this kind of accuracy?" For the record the Leigh stuff looks very impressive to me but I have never used a dovetail jig. It's interesting that they seem to be one of the only companies using 8mm bits. And they show Festool routers in their ads so they must be doing something right

--Mark

I think everyone is different in this area, you have to find what works best for you. I personally have a Jointech fence (same basic thing as the Incra) and I also have a Leigh jig. The Leigh basically just collects dust sitting on a shelf because I don't use it (one of these days I'll probably sell it). I do quite a bit of dovetailed drawers and do them all on my Jointech. Just me personally, but the Leigh, while a very nice tool, can't even come close to the Jointech in terms of speed. I'll typically clamp about 18 parts together and batch cut them all at once. There's absolutely no difference in terms of how well the joints fit between the two systems. I even do variable spaced DTs on my Jointech. Even an operation like that is much faster in my experience. Now maybe others have found ways to speed things up with the Leigh, but I sure haven't. I've done over 100 dovetailed drawers in one day on my Jointech without even breaking a sweat.

There are plenty of options out there that work quite well. I've found what works best for me. Your experience, and everyone else's, might be totally different from that of my own though.

Lou,

I am somewhat surprised at the speed of dovetailing that you stated.  When using the JoinTech to cut the tails (sides of drawers) of dovetails, I understand how you can stack a lot of (identically sized) drawer sides together and cut them at once.  But don't you have to process the (half-blind) pins of the drawer fronts and backs one pin cut at a time?  In my understanding, that means you have to pickup each drawer front and drawer back and machine one blind pin (female of the half-blind dovetail joint) at a time (you can rotate the front or back and machine one pin on each end for each JoinTech fence position setting), and you have to accurately adjust the JoinTech fence for each successive pin/tail position.  In contrast, with a dedicated dovetail jig, you can machine one corner of the drawer at a time -- the one edge of the front (or back) and the corresponding end of one of the sides.  Four times mounting of the boards in the jig and you are done.  And if you have a pair of routers, you can equip one with a straight bit to remove most of the material which puts less load on the other router equipped with the dovetail bit and presumably reduces tearout. 

When making dovetails using the JoinTech setup, do you first remove most of the material between the tails using a straight bit, then recut them using the dovetail bit? 

I have a JoinTech setup on my TS, and my experience when trying to cut dovetails and lock joints has been mostly frustration, possibly due to JoinTech's 17x27 inch table being anything but flat despite my trying to coax it to be flat for nearly one year.  I have not had similar problems using my inexpensive (plastic) Craftsman jig or my TrendLines knock-off of a PC jig.

Dave R.

 

[Lou Miller]

What is the party line on the DT jig vs systems like Incra that claim "who needs a dovetail jig with this kind of accuracy?" For the record the Leigh stuff looks very impressive to me but I have never used a dovetail jig. It's interesting that they seem to be one of the only companies using 8mm bits. And they show Festool routers in their ads so they must be doing something right

--Mark

I think everyone is different in this area, you have to find what works best for you. I personally have a Jointech fence (same basic thing as the Incra) and I also have a Leigh jig. The Leigh basically just collects dust sitting on a shelf because I don't use it (one of these days I'll probably sell it). I do quite a bit of dovetailed drawers and do them all on my Jointech. Just me personally, but the Leigh, while a very nice tool, can't even come close to the Jointech in terms of speed. I'll typically clamp about 18 parts together and batch cut them all at once. There's absolutely no difference in terms of how well the joints fit between the two systems. I even do variable spaced DTs on my Jointech. Even an operation like that is much faster in my experience. Now maybe others have found ways to speed things up with the Leigh, but I sure haven't. I've done over 100 dovetailed drawers in one day on my Jointech without even breaking a sweat.

There are plenty of options out there that work quite well. I've found what works best for me. Your experience, and everyone else's, might be totally different from that of my own though.

Lou,

I am somewhat surprised at the speed of dovetailing that you stated.  When using the JoinTech to cut the tails (sides of drawers) of dovetails, I understand how you can stack a lot of (identically sized) drawer sides together and cut them at once.  But don't you have to process the (half-blind) pins of the drawer fronts and backs one pin cut at a time?  In my understanding, that means you have to pickup each drawer front and drawer back and machine one blind pin (female of the half-blind dovetail joint) at a time (you can rotate the front or back and machine one pin on each end for each JoinTech fence position setting), and you have to accurately adjust the JoinTech fence for each successive pin/tail position.  In contrast, with a dedicated dovetail jig, you can machine one corner of the drawer at a time -- the one edge of the front (or back) and the corresponding end of one of the sides.  Four times mounting of the boards in the jig and you are done.  And if you have a pair of routers, you can equip one with a straight bit to remove most of the material which puts less load on the other router equipped with the dovetail bit and presumably reduces tearout. 

When making dovetails using the JoinTech setup, do you first remove most of the material between the tails using a straight bit, then recut them using the dovetail bit? 

I have a JoinTech setup on my TS, and my experience when trying to cut dovetails and lock joints has been mostly frustration, possibly due to JoinTech's 17x27 inch table being anything but flat despite my trying to coax it to be flat for nearly one year.  I have not had similar problems using my inexpensive (plastic) Craftsman jig or my TrendLines knock-off of a PC jig.

Dave R.

You do have to cut all the pins one at a time. However, the cutting of the pins doesn't take long at all, you're only pushing the wood into the bit by about a 1/2". You do one side, spin it around and do the other side. What I do is cut all of my pins at the same time. Doesn't matter if there are two pieces that need to be cut, or 300. I'll cut all the pins at one setting, then move the fence, cut them all again, move the fence, etc. I've got a big table, so it's no problem to stack them all very close by. I don't know how to explain it very well, but you get into a rythym where it goes really fast. Adjusting the fence is a piece of cake with the templates. That literally takes about two seconds each time you move the fence. For my purposes, most of the drawers I make are the same size, so that helps a lot. Usually, on each kitchen, I'll only have a few drawers that are different in size from the rest. I have to slow things down just a bit for them, but its not a big deal.

FWIW, I'm only making half blind DTs. Through DTs just aren't necessary for kitchen drawers. For half blinds, you just use a dovetail bit and that is all. I use a 14 degree 1/2" bit. Set it once and that's it. All your adjustments are made with the fence.

Like I said, everyone is different and there are lot of methods that work. Each of us have to find what works well for us and go with it. For me, the Jointech fence is, by far, the fastest and most accurate way I've found to do large amounts of dovetailed drawers. I don't expect universal agreement on that. Its just what works for me.

 

[Dave Ronyak]

Thanks, Lou.  Your explanation is much better than mine, and exactly how I envisoned your dovetailing sequence.  You have encouraged me to get with JoinTech to resolve my non-flat extension table problem and then try again.  My current project calls for drawer sides that are ~7/8" thick and half-blind dovetails into the front and back pieces (which are different in height), with a considerable overlap on the fronts.  The overlap should be no problem, as you have explained.

Dave R.