Dedicated Dovetail jig setups

[Bobby Robbinett]

We are getting more request for dovetail drawers at work and the boss man wants me to look into setting up 4 dedicated dovetail jigs and routers to do our drawer pins and tails until we do enough to justify a good machine. 99% of our drawers are either 4” or 7.5” as that is the standard in our market. What jigs would you guys suggest? We have used the larger Porter Cable jig for years and it does good, but for the money what else would you guys recommend? These will never be adjusted or moved once setup.

[John Kananis]

Leigh. If you're not making adjustments and the jig will be permanently setup (routers and all) its a nice setup.

[Jamie Buxton]

Half-blind or through dovetails?

[Thomas McCurnin]

+1 on Leigh, due to variable pin template.

For either through, half blind, or rabbeted dovetails, its the only jig that can put a 1/2 pin on either side of any size board. All other jigs require the operator to size the drawers to fit the jig. By way of example, for all other jigs, you cannot have a 4" drawer with a half pin at the top and bottom, the jig might require that the drawers be 4 1/2 inches.


Note: For older Leigh models, tails and pins have to be routed separately unlike most other jigs However, the D4 Pro has a plastic offset spacer to offset the Tail Board and a depth stop rod for single pass half blind dovetails. By the way, buy a bunch of those plastic offset pieces, as I can see misplacing those in a commercial environment. Older D4s can be upgraded with new guide fingers with holes in them for a depth stop and the little plastic spacer thingy.

As John suggested, you'll probably want a pair of routers dedicated to each Leigh jig and set up for typical stock set ups, like half blind 1/2" sides and 3/4" fronts.

All D4 jigs can be upgraded with a nifty vacuum and router support system called a VRS.

If variable pin design is not feature you need, I would go with Porter Cable. By the way the nifty VRS system also works on a Porter Cable jig, with some modifications.

[Richard Coers]

Tell the boss to buy a dovetail machine. Take the human out of the handling of a hand held router and get a much faster result. Something like a Porter Cable fit is influenced by the stock preparation and stock flatness. Those are horrible time wasters. Put the $2,000+ from 4 dovetail fixtures and 4 hand held rotors with bad dust collection towards a production machine and don't look back https://woodweb.com/cgi-bin/exchanges/machinery.cgi?CATEGORY=Dovetail%20Machines

[Thomas McCurnin]

There is a 15 spindle Brookman heavy duty dovetailer for $1,500 on Craigslist here in Los Angeles.

[Jim Dwight]

I agree with the other inputs but you don't have to spend what the Leigh jig costs to cut half blind dovetails. The problem is the fixed spacing of the jig versus your need for 4 and 7.5 inch drawer heights. I use a cheap Harbor Freight jig with a 7/16 template I got from Grizzly but it has been discontinued. It's not what you want anyway because your drawer height needs to be in increments of 7/8 inch. It won't do a 4 inch or a 7.5 inch drawer that looks right. It will do a 4 3/8 inch or a 7 inch. But the Woodstock jig that the HF is a copy of comes with a 1 inch template now. That would handle your 4 inch drawer and the jig costs just over $100. To do the 7.5 inch drawer you'd need something like a 1.25 inch template guide. It could be custom machined but that would, of course, add cost. To cut dovetails with this jig you need one router with a guide and a bit. Once the jig is set up, dovetails are easily cut. It is so easy I usually dovetail the backs of drawers too. This is a simple jig with no provision for dust collection so cutting the joints will make a dusty mess.

[Warren Lake]

brookman 15 pin or 25, semi automated if possible. Make sure the bits are okay or be another 2k for 25 bits.