Dovetail jigs?

[ramp34]

Can anyone recomend a good dovetail jig? Are the cheaper ones any good (like axminster) or is it worthwhile spending extra £££££'s?

 

[Jacob]

One of these
Does more angles and cheaper.
Most so-called DT jigs stick to just 2 angles, for no known reason. They really are redundant.
With a bit of practice you can freehand them - that's how they were done traditionally. If you look at old furniture they vary - sometimes quite severely, sometimes you can hardly tell.

 

[Mike.C]

Go for a Leigh, you know it makes sense :wink:

Cheers

Mike

 

[AndyT]

Well there you have it. Two sensible replies, one costing you 5 quid, the other 400.

It really does depend on how you want to go about woodworking. On the one hand, it's perfectly possible to learn trad skills and build good work using a small selection of hand tools. A lot of us like to do this and there can be great satisfaction in it.

But others choose to buy machinery and jigs that will enable them to turn out a lot of work, to a high standard of accuracy. There's satisfaction to be had that way too - designing exactly what you need and making it your way. A lot of people like owning good expensive kit and there's nothing wrong with that.

The time you spend making things may be less pleasant, once you've got your dust extraction and ear protection on, but it's up to you to choose.

 

[Mike.C]

Well there you have it. Two sensible replies, one costing you 5 quid, the other 400.

It really does depend on how you want to go about woodworking. On the one hand, it's perfectly possible to learn trad skills and build good work using a small selection of hand tools. A lot of us like to do this and there can be great satisfaction in it.

But others choose to buy machinery and jigs that will enable them to turn out a lot of work, to a high standard of accuracy. There's satisfaction to be had that way too - designing exactly what you need and making it your way. A lot of people like owning good expensive kit and there's nothing wrong with that.

The time you spend making things may be less pleasant, once you've got your dust extraction and ear protection on, but it's up to you to choose.

Andy you can pay that for the larger one, but you can also get the Leigh for under half that price today :wink:

http://www.rutlands.co.uk/power-tools-& ... etail-jigs

http://www.rutlands.co.uk/power-tools-& ... nk-cutters

http://www.axminster.co.uk/leigh-leigh- ... rod659724/

http://www.leighjigs.com/home.php

Cheers

Mike

 

[Calpol]

I think a different cutter lets you cut different angles, can't see a reason why not...?

There's absolutely no doubt hand cut dovetails look better and that's partly down to the spacing between them. With a saw you can have them way down to basically a kerfs width apart but with a cutter there's the diameter of the shank or thereabouts to deal with...

That said, customers (presuming you're selling) possibly couldn't care less how they're cut and would rather they were done quickly! A jig with adjustablity is obviously better if you want 'cabinet-maker' style joints (the nicer ones ) with wider pins and smaller gaps, also they let you layout the dovetails to the size of the drawer, not the jig.

I'd say get both, one for ease and one for fun

 

[Tim Nott]

Recently bought a Trend (Akeda) and very pleased with it except the dust extraction is dung. The real winner is that unlike the Leigh it's only adjustable in 3mm intervals , so you have to plan accordingly - BUT - it means you can repeat a setup exactly and easily, which was a godsend when Mr Clever here cut the DTs for seven drawers, then routed the drawer bottom slot on the wrong side one one of the 28 pieces

 

[Richard D]

There's absolutely no doubt hand cut dovetails look better and that's partly down to the spacing between them.

Then best of both worlds is a Woodrat. Almost infinite variety of spacing for that "hand-cut" look, yet repeatable. And it does a decent turn at pretending to be a router table. I was using mine earlier today, and once again it reminded me why I bought it instead of a standard dovetail jig.