Woodrat Owner Questions

[Joe Koren]

I have a couple of questions for the Woodrats owners on the list. I have been considering a Woodrat or a dovetail jig,and I have a few questions - particularly since the dovetail jigs run about half the price.

First, the Woodrat seems to be always mounted to a wall in the websites I have found. Has anyone mounted it to a workbench instead? If not do you think it could be done? (if you have done it can you provide pictures?)

How much "workspace" around the machine is necessary? How much would be ideal? What is the longest board you can cut a sliding dovetail into?

The woodrat seems to do quite well at making joints at 90 degree
angles. Can it make joints at other angles? For example, if I wanted
to make a hexegon box with dovetail joints (that require an angle of 60
degrees) could the Woodrat compenstae for this angle at this angle? If
so, would the work piece be angled to do this or would the router be
adjusted?

I have read some how-tos on the internet and am impressed how
flexible the system is, but also I read that people have mentioned how they have to pencil mark on the fence to make the joints
and that it is time consuming it is to set up the first set of joints. (I
suppose they are comparing that to using a dovetail machine). Is this true in your experience?

Finally, What do you consider the advantages or/and disadvantages if this was your ONLY joint making machine.

Thank you for your time and responses.

Joe

[Doug Mason]

This may veer alittle from your post, but these are my thoughts about the WoodRat (my opinion only).

You have to ask yourself what you need it for? If, like me, you're an amatuer who builds furniture for fun, and you just want a jig to make dovetails for shop stuff/your kitchen, but will do dovetails by hand for your fine furniture, I'd avoid the Rat and just buy the Porter Cable jig.

I'm not saying the Rat is bad--in fact I haven't used mine much because for the type of work I'm doing, I don't need anything but just a cheap jig to spit out horads of dovetails. So in hindsight, I shouldn't have bought the Rat--it's an expensive jig that "I" don't need. The situation might be different for you; if your intent is to do "all joinery" by machine, then the Rat might be appropriate.

[Gary Curtis]

It's good your asking these questions because the answers will let you tailor your purchase. And limit you expenditure.

Overall, I would say the first responder is pretty realistic. For Dovetails only, it is a lot of machine to buy and to learn. My purchase choice was made based on two qualities: a) the limited space required for the WoodRat, and b) the vast variety of wood milling it would do.

To answer your questions:
1) space needed ---- clearance underneath the machine, and about 18 inches to each side. The machine itself is 36" long. Height is 22", depth is 18".

2) The pencil marking technique can be done quickly. But it has been replaced by digital scales which are fairly cheap, and easy to install. I've used both methods and like cutting to a number for the sake of accuracy, but cutting to a pencil line for sheer enjoyment of it. WR owners fall into both camps.

3) Odd angles joints, such as the compound angle tenons needed for chair construction are a snap on the WR. A new jig, which sells for about $125, handles out-of-the ordinary clamping configurations. It's called the Multi-Angle Clamping Jig.

The American distributor makes and sells both the digital scales and the clamping jig. That is the Craftsman Gallery ( www.chipsfly.com ). They sell the machine itself and the tooling. Lee Valley is now an authorized dealer as well.

As far as cost, I believe that if you were to get both the Leigh DT Jig, and the Leigh FMT for mortise and tenon, you would be close to the cost of a WoodRat with tooling. I've seen the WR come up for sale on eBay once every few months. Be patient.

Gary Curtis:rolleyes:

[Gary Curtis]

Ooops. Overlooked your last question.

Having worked on the machine for about 18 months, I made a list of ALL THE EQUIPMENT I DIDN'T BUY because the WoodRat it. A sort of "purchase list in the negative".

I just added to that list the Festool Domino. I can do equally accurate Loose Tenon joints, although a little slower on the WoodRat. If I were a finish carpenter however, the Domino would be a must-have machine because of its portability.

To be honest, I don't like the "Swiss Army Knife" approach in machine or tool design. None of those individual blades on the Swiss Army Knife are what I would call a superior tool. That concern came up when I heard about the WoodRat. But even though I have a brand new shop, dedicated only to my woodworking, I have to be careful about space.

I don't like clutter. And I don't like boxes filled with little attachments and shims that are destined to get lost. With the WoodRat cleanly mounted on the wall, it doesn't impede any other process in the shop.

But there are workstyle issues you might consider as well. The WoodRat isn't quite as 'hands-on' as a portable router. The work is clamped underneath and you control the cutting with a hand crank, squeeze bars and a push & pull of the router plate. More like a 3-Axis CNC machine than a hand router, I would say. But then there is greater safety even than a router table, and much superior dust collection.

:pIt's all up to which method you prefer.

Gary Curtis

[Scott Rollins]

I have the woodrat and a Incra Jig for dovetailing. I think the set-up time is about the same between the two. I recently halfblind dovetailed the fronts and full dovetailed the back of 7 drawers (each a different height) on the woodrat in about 8 hours. This was my first attempt at half blind dovetails which require a lot of hand work to get right on the woodrat. The through dovetails are a snap(if all the drawers were through dovetails I could have finished in 2-3 hours).
The mortice and tenon is a simple set-up also usually only requiring one set-up for the tenons (to adjust the fit in the mortice). The woodrat is a versatile machine, but it does cost alot. I do not think it is worth what I paid for it (and mine was used). The dovetails look great though!:o
I suggest you get the video from woodrat.com and decide for yourself. The angled dovetails should be possible...though difficult the first time. Once set-up the machine is very repeatable. You work to a pencil mark all the time in woodworking..just use a very fine pencil.
For the money ($1000) I would use the woodrat bits in the Leigh D4 ( to get the 1/8-3/16 pins) and buy a FMT also.

[Doug Shepard]

Dave Richards has a mounting box worth looking at
http://www.woodrat.com/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=1;t=431
I'm planning on doing something similar and mounting it to my workbench (as soon as that's finished). I think his is mounted to a wall but have seen something similar to his on one of the rat forums somewhere (just cant recall where) that clamped into the bench vises when in use. I'm going to attach mine to the back of the bench with fixture knobs and long bolts into cross dowels in the bench when I'm using it.

[Eric Mims]

this won't answer your question, but I use my Woodrat mainly for profiling and I also built a table that clamps to the Woodrat face.. it allows me to clamp a piece to the top of the table jig and then cut holes/slots/etc into the face/edge of the board with ease and control (for instance, cutting a .25" closed end slot 12" long in a 1" wide board).

done a few box joints with it and they worked fine. a few sliding dovetails as well. no problems.

[Jeff Booth]

It is not a matter if the rat can be mounted to a bench, it is rather if you would want to. I personally have mine mounted such that my eyes are looking at the center of the motor on the router. This is about right, you see with the rat I think you will tend to look under the main stationary base plate a lot of the time for setting up, but also for performing the work. Having the router at eye level is a good compromise. If it were bench mounted I think I would get tired of bending so far over all the time.

I did not have any wall space available, I mounted it on the end of a 4' wide rack system that I have set up for storage.


I use my for dovetails, box joints and for all kinds of mortising, trenching etc...

I agree with the person that said a digital gage is almost necessary rather than using the suggested pencil method. I have created my own crude template system for box joints, for dovetails I intentionally cut them a little too tight and then pare them to final dimension with a chisel, only takes about 5 minutes a side of finish up and the joints come out consistently nice.

As far as comparing to a dovetail jig, I would guess the jig is much faster once set up, but for my uses I am not worried about speed, I only cut maybe 4 or 5 projects a year with dovetails and typically I can get the rat to handle it fast enough to my liking, I am not in any need for speed, this is my relaxation time.

For mortising and trenching, it really is nice, it is a very safe way to run a router, very safe.

The rat propaganda is that it is superior to a router table, I find that puzzling. The router table is simply better for profiling, much better.

I got mine used with a Bosch router and plunge bar for $500 on ebay, it was well worth it.

As far as the maximum distance across a board, I think maybe 9 or 10" is about it. It has several adjustments, but I think if you max everything out you have about 10" of travel away from the rat main extrusion (ie you can cut a 10" trench across a board)

Good luck in your decision.

J