Router table jig for jewellery box tray dividers

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Glynne

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As I'm primarily a box maker, I spend forever making very small cross lap joints for the dividers in the trays.
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To date I've been cutting these by hand and it was only when I was commenting on an Instagram post by a professional box maker, did I find out that he cuts his on a router table.
So after a bit of experimentation: -
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Very basic, but by having the "support" at right angles to the main body, I can just run the jig along the table fence without having to worry about aligning to the table track. The only reason for having 3 "prongs" is so that I can support small cross dividers.
In operation, I use sacrifical pieces both in front and at the back of the workpieces to prevent breakout (and to protect the support piece) and one workpiece is routed the right way up and the second upside down. For symmetrical dividers, you can simply swap the piece end to end.
Edit.
So busy resizing pictures that I forgot to add I use wood marginally thicker than the diameter of the router bit - by say 0.1 - 0.2mm, so as to get a tight, gap free fit.
 

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What a cracking idea. I regularly make variations around these side tables, which feature delicate stretchers with similar cross halving joints

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I cut the halving joints before cutting the curved shape, so it would require a taller router cutter, but given that these stretchers are normally in about 10-12mm thick material that shouldn't be a problem. The way I currently do it is on a table saw but it's a faff, I have to change from an ATB blade to a fine rip blade to get a flat bottomed cut, so this is definitely one to try, thank you!

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I use the same sort of set up to make very small shallow (1-2mm deep) housings (dado) in box and drawer dividers rather than halvings. It allows you to make repeatable housings a set distance from one en.
 
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