Shop Stuff #5: Machine Cut Through Dovetails

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc158/spalm_pics/DTails/dt1.jpg

Simple, Fast, Easy, Thin Pins, Variable Spacing, Looks Hand Cut, Simple Set Up, Tastes like Chicken.

I have been playing around with dovetails for the last couple of weeks. I have tried many methods of making them, as complete hand cut ones are just too much work for me. I own a commercial Leigh dovetail jig but I have never been happy with the look or the futzing that it took to set it up. So this is what is working for me, all ideas are cobbled together from other designs. I cut the pins on a router table and then cut the tails on a bandsaw. It requires virtually no machine setup once two simple sliding jigs are made. The bottoms of the tails are still chopped out with a chisel, but with thin pins, this is really easy.
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I will show a whole sequence of pics on how I do it. Not sure if anything is really new here, but this works for me. First mark the center of the pins with a pencil line on the outside surface, as seen as four pencil lines on the piece of cherry. That’s it. The width of the pins is determined later.

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My router table is really just the wing of my tablesaw. I did not have a miter gauge slot for it, so I plowed a 3/4 inch grove in a jointed 2

Shop Stuff #5: Machine Cut Through Dovetails