dovetail jig & 3/4 stock

[Gil Liu]

How many passes would you make to dovetail 3/4" quartersawn oak? I have a dewalt 621 router in the d-handle base and am using the akeda jig. I am trying to make half-blind dovetails and am using the 9-degree bit.

Thanks for help,
Gil

[John Lucas]

Gil,
Come righ to left for the first pass. Just dont press too hard. This climb cut will just clean the entry. Then go left to right on further passes. It is not a matter of how many pases. You go until you can hear that the bit is not cutting wood. Then, you are done.

[Gil Liu]

Thanks for the speedy reply. Just to clarify, I had a question about how deep to cut. The starting bit depth is 1 & 3/16ths inches -- I had bad luck trying to cut that deep in a single pass and was wondering if folks used a couple of passes or even more to get to the final depth of cut

Thanks,
Gil

[Matt Day]

I'm not familiar with the Akeda jig, but wouldn't steadily increasing the height of a dovetail bit completely mess up the joint?

[Dave Avery]

Gil,

Full depth right at the start. Take small bites as you move the router further back - say an 1/8th at a time. Best. Dave.

[Kyle Kraft]

Seems like you could start with a straight bit to hog out most of the material then switch to the dovetail bit and go to full depth.

[Jim Becker]

With half-blinds, Kyle's method can be helpful if you are worried about hogging material, but you really don't have flexibity in bit height...it needs to be exact from the get-go or the dovetails will not fit together properly. If you plan on routinely working with heavier material, consider switching to 8mm shank bits...more metal; more strength.