Dovetail jigs etc. - which to buy?

[RussianRouter]

Sharp. As in good-looking, neat, crisp.

Can't say I've have bluntish looking DT,is your bits real sharp? and do you do what I said with the plywood?

You could alway sand after glueing up?

 

[RussianRouter]

Look at this vid that GeorgeN posted you'll see that the wood is affixed to a backing wood to stop tear out/splintering,also notice when the bit is entering the wood it splinters,he could overcome this by clamping scrapwood over the wokpiece.


http://www.gifkins.com.au/

 

[Richard D]

I give in. Something is obviously being lost in translation.

 

[Tony Spear]

I give in. Something is obviously being lost in translation.

I agree with you there Richard.

Anyway:

Woodrat cuts the biggest range of dovetail sizes in the market (4mm. to 28mm.) It'll cut finger joints down to 2mm! It'll cut sliding dovetails.

Because they make HSS bits for it, it cuts finer angles than the bulky Carbide bits that the others use. HSS can also be sharpened, so it stays really sharp instead of nearly sharp like Carbide which means it cuts cleaner in Hardwoods.
Obviously, in man made boards you can't cut such fine dovetails as you're limited to the bulkier carbide bits.

You can make variable spacings between the dovetails and dovetails of different sizes in the same workpiece if you want and even combine through and half - blind in the same piece.

It holds a 600mm. board without repositoining. You could batch cut as many finger joints as the clamps will hold, so if you're brave enough you could theoretically cut 60 10mm. box sides in one hit.

It cuts excellent tenons in a single simple operation without moving the workpiece and cuts excellent mortices. I've not used the new mortice rail but I believe by using a simple pre-cut batten and the fitted index pin you can cut identical mortices in two pieces at the same time for rail mortices and by turning the pieces over you can cut through dovetails of over 4".

With a simple home made jig you can cross cut dadoes or even sliding mortices for the shelves in bookcase sides up to about 8"

And if you look on Aldels site and some of the U.S. forums you'll find that people have done some amazing things with it! :shock:

 

[Tony Spear]

And furthermore you can (most of the time) see what the cutter is doing.

 

[Tim Nott]

Take a look at the Trend DC400 aka Akeda
Although you're limited to 3mm steps in spacing, this is more than compensated by absulute accurate repeatibility and speedy setup