Thread: Dovetail alignment jig

Nice one .

I think essential if you want fine dovetails 18th century English style. I don't believe it can be done without a jig holding the work while the job is marked.

I have made a few jigs for this purpose, for box and drawer marking out and cutting, and one for carcase marking and cutting, that have evolved . One has clamps attached.

It can be done with out them, since I made them though I and the guys that I work with reach for them every time.

Rob

For drawers, I cut a piece of scrap that is a tight fit in the groove for the bottom, and use that to align front & side pieces when transferring tails onto the pin board. That ensures the bottom grooves line up as well as helping to hold things steady while I scribe the pins.

For carcase pieces, 500mm or so wide, it's a bit trickier, keeping the face edges aligned and the edges flush, while scribing 10 or more pins. Maybe I need to make myself a wide jig like that....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by auscab

Nice one .

I think essential if you want fine dovetails 18th century English style. I don't believe it can be done without a jig holding the work while the job is marked.

I have made a few jigs for this purpose, for box and drawer marking out and cutting, and one for carcase marking and cutting, that have evolved . One has clamps attached.

It can be done with out them, since I made them though I and the guys that I work with reach for them every time.

Rob

Rob some pictures of these jigs would be nice. Cutting dovetails is hard enough and any sort of jig to make it easier is good. We are selling our house and in the new place I intend to make a new kitchen. Currently I am struggling with my conscience. Much as I like joinery, the idea of cutting, by hand, an entire kitchens worth of dovetailed drawers makes me think about routers and machines.

Chook, Yours looks like it hooks over the bench. With my one I did it as a box with a bottom, it clamps to and sits up on a bench or work table, so it cuts back on the hours of bending over to work on dovetails. The work sits chest height

I fitted clamps to mine, simple wooden bridge clamps. A drawer front and side clamp in up against the fence and when right get clamped down.

The smaller one in the bottom two pictures is a rough version , I was going to refine it ,it works well and I haven't got around to it. It does four things.
On it's left side it clamps a drawer side over the end of a front for marking. To do this some of the sliding stop wood at the other end has to be taken off.
It clamps a drawer back to the inside of a side for marking. I like marking off the pins in the back of drawers , not the tails.
At the right end it clamps a drawer front facing out, flush to the top, with a stop which is set which allows a router to take out waste and stop at the scribe line. Or can go through if I tape in a waste strip 4mm thick for the router cutter to hit.
And it doubles as a waste box for off cuts that come off my smaller band saw, It lives in that spot just behind that band saw.

With carcase joints, for the sawing, a well in the bench helps for clamping but the big jig does a lot more and better. Its pine capped with Jarrah. The eye nuts are good for doing up by hand and you can stick a screwdriver through the hole and tighten as well. They sell at Bunnings.
Once again it lifts the work to a comfy height, It clamps and holds for marking and sawing, the top clamp slides back or forward for the router to stop on, taking out waste .

Rob

Originally Posted by chook

Rob some pictures of these jigs would be nice. Cutting dovetails is hard enough and any sort of jig to make it easier is good. We are selling our house and in the new place I intend to make a new kitchen. Currently I am struggling with my conscience. Much as I like joinery, the idea of cutting, by hand, an entire kitchens worth of dovetailed drawers makes me think about routers and machines.

Chook, not sure where in Brissy you are but I have a 24" Leigh superjig (which I still haven't had a chance to use yet) sitting in my garage if you wanted to borrow it for your kitchen build. It takes a bit of setting up but once it is you'll pump out all the drawers required in no time.

Originally Posted by Ozziespur

Chook, not sure where in Brissy you are but I have a 24" Leigh superjig (which I still haven't had a chance to use yet) sitting in my garage if you wanted to borrow it for your kitchen build. It takes a bit of setting up but once it is you'll pump out all the drawers required in no time.

i would love to use it. I live in Brisbane also. Thank you very much indeed

Originally Posted by chook

i would love to use it. I live in Brisbane also. Thank you very much indeed

We're in Calamvale on the southside. I'll PM you my mobile nbr & we can arrange a pickup or drop-off for whenever you want it.

Cheers, Scott

*edit* it appears your inbox is full Chook.

Originally Posted by auscab

Nice one .

I think essential if you want fine dovetails 18th century English style. I don't believe it can be done without a jig holding the work while the job is marked.

I have made a few jigs for this purpose, for box and drawer marking out and cutting, and one for carcase marking and cutting, that have evolved . One has clamps attached.

It can be done with out them, since I made them though I and the guys that I work with reach for them every time.

Rob

I just place a wide chisel along one side and this will register alignment for both parts. Nothing special needed. I suspect that Steve Hay got the idea from David Barron, who has a jig for everything, including sawing dovetails.

Having said that, it is very important that the parts do not move when marks are transferred. There are a number of ways to do this. For example, Rob Cosman introduced a fine rebate to align the boards. I use a rest surface with fine sandpaper as non-slip on a Moxon vise (plus that wide chisel I mentioned). http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMad...rtheMoxon.html

For myself, being able to see the transferred lines on dark wood is a bigger issue. Use chalk or, as I have come to prefer, blue tape, since this means that one makes one light stroke with a knife, which minimises the possibility of parts moving.

Regards from Perth

Derek

This is why I like pins first. Don't need any jigs.

In fact with pine, you could very nearly get away with resting the pin board on the tail board and giving it a good sharp rap with a mallet, so no marking required either.

Personally I think those tails are a little narrow though... I like to see a bit of meat in the neck. The pins can be as thin as you like.

Originally Posted by derekcohen

it is very important that the parts do not move when marks are transferred. There are a number of ways to do this.



Regards from Perth

Derek

There are a range of required skills but get the marking out sloppy in the slightest, and things get worse from there.
My jigs started out as just a way to hold when marked , other bits just got added.


When I'm doing drawers I am building them to a style date , drawer construction and how it evolved I find, is a very interesting thing to observe and I like to follow it . I think the smartest construction period was the Victorian times, but that would be an ugly mistake to replicate them in an Queen Anne style piece.

Marking off the pins is good for the drawer back, or box construction, but not as easy to mark out for a drawer front where the tails do not go right through. so the tails at the fronts of sides get cut first with me , and the marking is done off them.

I bought and tried a leigh jig twenty years ago, used it twice , talk about make an easy job complex!!
Chook , very generous of Ozziespur to offer that , Id be interested to know what you think of using one when you give it a go , PM me if you don't want to add it to a thread.

These drawer construction pics were before I made jigs and they came out fine . Doing it this way was done using a steel block as a weight to hold the side down to the front for marking , lining the two up with a square. All those Blackwood drawers for one desk , a favorite memory of mine . Hide glue assembly with drawer slips on the inside. The marking, cutting, routing the waste all done on that Jarrah board on my bench top in that first picture.

Rob

It was a wonderful offer and solves one of the issues I was considering. If you just read the newspapers then you might think that the human race were all horrors then somebody comes along an shows that generosity and kindness are still alive. I like joinery but the thought of making an entire kitchens worth of dovetailed drawers daunted me. It will be a few months until I begin construction. We are selling our house (down sizing) and when we get a new place, a new kitchen will be the first project of the list. I have a nice pile of camphor waiting.

As for dovetails, wars have been started over lessor issues. For a long time I cut pins first but about 3 years ago I started doing the tails first. This is my very much preferred option. If nothing else you can always work from the face side.

The jig is not necessary. I made it without a jig. But it really does make marking out easier.

On a related issue, I have a Pfeil Double Bevel Marking knife which I use for most tasks. But it is just too fat for marking out narrow or tiny dovetails. I pinch a kitchen knife when I need it but this is not really satisfactory. I have read that Blue Spruce make a thin bladed knife that might work. My shed is too small for any more machinery (an issue to be addressed when we move house: a smaller house and a bigger shed is the plan) otherwise I might consider making one, but this is not an option at the moment. What do other people use?

On a related issue, I have a Pfeil Double Bevel Marking knife which I use for most tasks. But it is just too fat for marking out narrow or tiny dovetails. I pinch a kitchen knife when I need it but this is not really satisfactory. I have read that Blue Spruce make a thin bladed knife that might work. My shed is too small for any more machinery (an issue to be addressed when we move house: a smaller house and a bigger shed is the plan) otherwise I might consider making one, but this is not an option at the moment. What do other people use?

Hi Chook

Blue Spruce?! Go Australian - get a knife from Chris Vesper (called the Cohen Knife .... I have no investment here. Chris asked for a design and I said he could use mine). They come in two thinnesses, standard (thin) and thinner. Or make your own: http://www.inthewoodshop.com/ShopMad...Dovetails.html

I began making them several years ago, with HSS blades from jigsaws.



Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by derekcohen

...... Or make your own.....

For sure - a marking knife would have to be amongst the simplest of tools to make. It doesn't have to be flash to work well. For donkey's years I used one that was just a bit of ground-off hacksaw blade epoxied into a handle. Did the job perfectly well until Derek made a more elaborate one for me, using a jigsaw blade which is 1mm thick. It's an excellent marker, but occasionally a bit fat to get into tight places, so I made a couple of others using scraps of thin saw plate for the blades. Saw plate is a bit soft, so I hardened the tips. I rough-shape the blades with a file, then flame-harden them, after which I clean them up & sharpen on a diamond stone. I leave them hard & don't temper, so they should be too brittle, by rights, but I only harden the end 6mm or so, and that seems to work very well.

Cheers,

I like them thin enough to fit the smallest gap between two tails which is saw blade thickness , this is a wide one made from the large size steel strapping that timber packs come in.
Others I make from 9.5 mm band saw blade off cuts. They are small enough to get under a drawer back when it's standing on a side on its pins to be marked. The pins are about 10mm long.

Rob