porter cable 4212 dovetail jig ??

[Ron Franssen]

I having a little trouble creating through dovetails with the jig. Hopefully, someone out there can provide some helpful tips.

I have set up the jig and cut all the tails first.
Then I flipped jig to cut the pins.

First problem: I had to move the jig beyond the indicator line about 1/8" before I was able to get the pins and tails to slide together. This doesn't appear to be a huge problem, it just seams that the indicator line should be "close" to the edge of the board when clamped in the jig.

Second problem: after sliding the boards together for the drawer, the top edge of the drawer sides/front/back do not align. One edge is a little up, the other edge is a little low, etc. This won't be a problem for my practice drawers but I'd like it to be better before I start any real furniture. Perhaps I need to turn the boards end over end rather than rotating them when cutting the pins and tails.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Brian Penning]

Just used mine today. Not sure about the 1st problem -mine lines up close to the line.
2nd problem -you do have to make sure that when you do the tails that the board is in the centre of the jig fingers. The closer you are to have the boards centered the less misalignment you'll get.
That being said for the tails I do 1 end then flip the board over.
For the pins I do 1 end then flip and rotate.
Likely the reason you're getting that slight misalignment is you're not starting the boards the same way, whether the board inside is facing the jig or vice versa.
Best thing I did was to have 2 dedicated routers -1 for the tails and 1 for the pins. Once they're adjusted you don't have to change collets and re-adjust, etc.
Hope I explained it well enough,