Thread: Looking for a dovetail jig

A dovetail bit with a bearing will always be concentric whereas a guide bush needs to be carefully aligned.

Nearly all dovetail jigs are only designed to cut one type of dovetail; for instance the cheapy $50 ones you buy from China will only do 1/2" blind dovetails with 14 degree tails. These are used commercially for drawers and you can tell this from miles away. Jigs like the Porter Cable and Gifkin jigs produce an evenly spaced through dovetail that mimic a traditional hand cut joint.

Some will allow other templates to be fitted to cut different profiles or sizes, but they cost money. To be honest; I've never heard a bad word said about Gifkins jigs.

I guess the ultimate would have to be the Leigh jig; this allows so many variations on the theme it's almost not funny; but they are fiddly to set up and demand a premium price.

Maybe you can find a Stotts Dovetail Master Template; this is a jig to make jigs

Tiff has a fairly good brief summary, but you really need to define what you want to do before going too far. Things that count are joint width, through or half blind dovetail, large or small box joint capacity as well, prefered operating method (table mounted or hand held router).

Have watched a few Gifkins demos but haven't used them. Basically seems to be limited to about 250mm joint width, fine for drawers small boxes etc, not much use on medium to large cabinets like blanket boxes etc. Range of half blind and box joint templates available for small to large joint features, but expensive to put a kit of templates and bits together. Normally used with a table mounted router, but the work can be inverted in a vise with the jig fixed and worked with a hand held router.

There are a number of families of Leigh jigs. The most basic is similar in use to the Gifkins, but I don't know about a range of templates for it. However it is relocatable on the work so is not as limited in panel width.

The next step up is the Superjig, in 300mm, 450mm and 600mm board capacity. These use user positioned guide fingers to set layout and provide through and half blind dovetail and 5/16 and 5/8 inch box joints, and can be used for sliding dovetails. You can get decorative pattern templates for the 450 and 600mm units.

Their ultimate is the D4R system which has 600mm capacity, and is similar to the largest Superjig except that it uses half fingers in the layout instead of full fingers so you have total control of pin and tail width in the layout. Similar decorative templates are available, and a box joint template coping with a range of pin widths is also available.

It would seem to me that your dissatisfaction with Plunge routers and desire to work with a table set up would point you in the direction of the Gifkens system. If you want the flexibility of the Leigh system, you will need a plunge router, which you will probably have to adjust most times you cut DT's. That said, careful management of your resources will allow you to create reference joints, which will make adjusting the router a piece of cake. Once you have spent some time on the Leigh system, you'll find it's just a brilliant system. Learning from someone who has one and uses it frequently is essential in my book.

LGS

All the abovementioned jigs are excellent choices in D/T jigs.

Once learned, they offer quick, repeatable and accurate results.

Unfortunately, however, they are all flawed in that they all scream "machine made" in the joints they cut. It's not just about spacing and angles of the pins that separates machine and handcut dovetails. It's also the fine-ness of the pins.

Thinking outside the box an English gentleman (whose name escapes me) developed a strange, difficult to learn but extremely clever and versatile jig called the Woodrat. This was the only type of jig available that truly replicated hand-cut joints. It also provides the basis for an extrordinary variety of other joints also, such as sliding dovetails, angled and straight mortise and tenons, box joints and a host of others only limited by one's imagination.

The former American distributor of the 'Rat, frustrated at what he felt were some glaring faults with the original, plagiarised and improved the concept to produce the Router Boss. More sophisticated, (slightly) more intuitive and a whole lot more expensive. But also currently the absolute state of the art in router jigs.

I'm of course excluding CNC machines here, which are another quantum of sophistication and price.

Suffice it to say that, once learned, either the Woodrat or the Router Boss are a class above all others in terms of the appearance of the results obtained and the versatility and quality of the joints produced.

Hi, I've just been down this path so can offer some examples of the choices I made, if that's any help. My experience level with routers is novice. However, I have been gifted a top class Festool OF2200 and table. I can hand make dovetail joints of all varieties with some level of skill but it is very time consuming. Also, I know how to make custom jigs for sliding dovetails with the router hand-held.
Because I only get to do woodwork occasionally I needed a fast, easy to use, easy to set-up system for dovetail and finger joint boxes and drawers that I would remember how to use after some absence. So, for me the ease of use and set-up of the Gifkins jig made it my choice. Yes, the Leigh is more flexible but too fussy to remember or use for my occasional woodwork. I don't know anything about the other numerous types so won't comment.

Your question about through and blind dovetails - the Gifkins only does through dovetails and finger joints BUT, planting a piece of the same timber in front of a through dovetail makes it look like a blind dovetail, drawer front type of joint.

If you want the purist hand-cut look best to get a good hand saw and some fine chisels and a lot of time, though I agree they do look great. I'm happy with my Gifkins for most of the things that I want to build.

Good luck.

Originally Posted by Ratbag

All the abovementioned jigs are excellent choices in D/T jigs.

Once learned, they offer quick, repeatable and accurate results.

Unfortunately, however, they are all flawed in that they all scream "machine made" in the joints they cut. It's not just about spacing and angles of the pins that separates machine and handcut dovetails. It's also the fine-ness of the pins.

This link makes an interesting argument that I'm not sure that they scream machine made.
.
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f11/ma...etails-112198/

SB

I'm in love with my incra system at the moment but it's not really a dovetail jig per se. More like an advanced fence that can cut dovetails. The possibilities with the incra make my poor little brain explode.

Hi Hellowfellow. Put this into Google - dovetails on table saw - Heaps of YouTube vids on using a tablesaw and jig. Worth considering

I have a Gifkins. The only thing it doesn't do is half blind DTs. But that is easily sorted as mentioned above.

The BIG advantage with the Gifkins is that you move the workpiece over the the bit rater than juggling the router over the workpiece.

Katie dovetail jig is very similar to the Gifkin but allows for different spacing. Again only through dovetails and not sure of a distributor in Australia.

George