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Anonymous

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Hi,

I need to cut fine dovetails for small jewellery boxes and a machinists chest I have been planning to make for ages :oops: so need a fully adjustable dovetail cutting jig for fine dovetails - both through and stopped. Having looked about most seem to use set width templates and guide bushes, but then I came across the woodrat. This looks a nice piece of kit with a fully adjustable facility and the ability to make a series of other joints also :) Does anyone have any experience of using one or recommendations of other more suitable jigs?

I have ordered the glossy video from the woodrat website but wanted a hands on opinion as well as a totally biased salesman's one :wink:

Any thoughts gratefully recieved. Love the site by the way, very useful!

Steve.
 
I have both the Woodrat and Leigh jig.
Although I really like the Woodrat's ability to move the workpiece by turning a handle, my woodrat is now gathering dust, but still gets used for comb joint work.
I find the Leigh jig much better suited to dovetails.
It depends on if you want a machine only for dovetails, or something that can do more.
If it's just dovetails then I'd go for the Leigh.

Best of luck, Peter
 
The Rats are not as intuitive to use as the template based jigs, it does offer a much finer dovetail if the HSS bits are used though. For mortising and such it is quite intuitive and easy to use. I think the Rat would be a good choice for all-round use, a lot of bang for the crown (so to speak). To get the full capability from the system though you may need to build a few jigs and such. I actually think you get 90% or more of this capability with the LittleRat.

I have more Rat info on my site if you wish to see.

PMB
http://benchmark.20m.com
 
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