woytek
04-06-2007, 10:23 PM
I just got paid for a little bit of consulting that I did, so I used a little bit of that to go out and buy a tool that I intend to use for my next cabinet project: a dovetail jig. I chose the Complete Dovetail Jig from Rockler after a little bit of research. The other jigs I looked at were the Porter-Cable 4212, the Leigh D1600, and the Keller Journeyman System.
If I had unlimited cash, I probably would have the Leigh D4. I really liked the D1600 features and price point, but it was more than I could spend right now, so I had to back-burner that purchase for a few years down the road. I decided that I wanted the flexibility of doing half-blind dovetails, so I also eliminated the Keller Journeyman System jig. This left me with the PC 4212 and the Rockler jig.
I was initially looking at the Rockler Combo Jig, which is essentially the previous model of the Complete Dovetail Jig. When I actually went to Rockler today, I had a chance to look at what both jigs did and came with, and decided that I liked the few upgraded features on the newer jig. I also found that my Rockler didn't seem to have the 4212 in stock, but they had piles of the 4210 jig. While I liked a few features of the 4212 over the Rockler jig, the Rockler won because of availability and the fact that I could easily get a 7/16" bushing for my router (which does not, without some additional equipment, take PC bushings). As a side-note, for you Bosch 1617 owners, the standard Porter Cable baseplate does fit at least the fixed base, which means that you can use PC bushings and baseplate-mounted accessories using only the $10 PC replacement baseplate. This might be useful for some folks. On the other hand, the Craftsman-branded version of the 1617 has the blanks for the screw holes that we found on the standard Bosch plate in the store today, but they are not drilled-out. If you're brave, I suppose you could drill them out and tap them for the correct screw. I'm not brave, and my fancy 1617-drilled baseplate from patwarner.com hasn't come in yet, so I picked-up the $10 plastic bushing kit that fits the Craftsman baseplates for the moment.
This evening, I had a chance to set up and try the jig on a few joints. Upon opening the box, the first thing that I found was a label that one is instructed to immediately place over the existing label on the jig. The label contains setup information for the template and fence settings on the jig for different stock during common operations. The original label was missing the words "pins" and "tails" for through dovetail setup, which could be a little confusing.
The rest of the jig was packed quite well. Assembly involved installing the two cam-lock handles on the clamps, and the jig was pretty much ready to go. This newer version of the jig comes with three 8mm shank bits, and a 1/2" -> 8mm collet sleeve, along with a PC-style 7/16" brass bushing and lock ring. The bits include an 8-degree dovetail bit, a 12-degree dovetail bit, and a straight bit.
The instructions were pretty easy to follow, and gave useful hints for folks who might be new to, or do not frequently use, dovetail joints. Interestingly, the instructions guide one through doing half-blind joints first. I thought that this would have been the harder joint to do first, and I wanted to experiment with through dovetails first, so I jumped-ahead to the through dovetail instructions.
Through dovetails are pretty easy on this jig. It is easy to set it up for repeated cuts, and I was able to do a number of repetitions quite quickly and easily. The instructions have one cut the tails first. This is done with the dovetail bit, and goes pretty quickly. Setting-up for the pins is again quite easy, but here I found one slight defect in my jig: The templates use keyed holes for mounting to the jig using supplied keyed bolts and hand nuts, and one of the holes in my pins template was not centered in the key, meaning that I had to turn the key sideways and hold it lightly to tighten the nut on that side. No matter, though, as the cuts were almost perfect on the first try, using the recommended settings. Cutting the tails is done with the straight-cutting bit, and went pretty smoothly. The templates are handily marked with directions to make the joint more loose or more tight, depending on the initial test-fit.
Half-blind dovetails are just about as easy. They are all cut with the tails template and the dovetail bit. Stock setup is a little different, but again quite easy. I had to make a slight adjustment in the positioning of the "stop bar" depth fence on my cuts because the Bosch/Craftsman baseplate is slightly bigger than the standard PC baseplate. The instruction booklet gives a quick mathematical formula to figure out this distance quickly, which would be helpful for folks with non-standard baseplates. As it was, I only had to adjust by about a small amount, so I just did an initial adjustment by eye, and ran a test piece to see if it worked. I was lucky. :)
Overall, I'm quite pleased thus far with this jig. Setup was fast and easy, and I was cutting dovetails in well under thirty minutes after unpacking it. I will one day have the D1600, or the D4, or whatever jig is the "new" Leigh at the time, but this one is well made and I expect it to last for quite some time. The real test will be with a few small projects (a small mail-keeper for our home is first on the list, followed by something for the kitchen to hold sugar packets and tea) that I'm planning to get the hang of the jig before using it on its first cabinet project.
I hope maybe this will help someone who might be on the fence about this jig.
jonathan
If I had unlimited cash, I probably would have the Leigh D4. I really liked the D1600 features and price point, but it was more than I could spend right now, so I had to back-burner that purchase for a few years down the road. I decided that I wanted the flexibility of doing half-blind dovetails, so I also eliminated the Keller Journeyman System jig. This left me with the PC 4212 and the Rockler jig.
I was initially looking at the Rockler Combo Jig, which is essentially the previous model of the Complete Dovetail Jig. When I actually went to Rockler today, I had a chance to look at what both jigs did and came with, and decided that I liked the few upgraded features on the newer jig. I also found that my Rockler didn't seem to have the 4212 in stock, but they had piles of the 4210 jig. While I liked a few features of the 4212 over the Rockler jig, the Rockler won because of availability and the fact that I could easily get a 7/16" bushing for my router (which does not, without some additional equipment, take PC bushings). As a side-note, for you Bosch 1617 owners, the standard Porter Cable baseplate does fit at least the fixed base, which means that you can use PC bushings and baseplate-mounted accessories using only the $10 PC replacement baseplate. This might be useful for some folks. On the other hand, the Craftsman-branded version of the 1617 has the blanks for the screw holes that we found on the standard Bosch plate in the store today, but they are not drilled-out. If you're brave, I suppose you could drill them out and tap them for the correct screw. I'm not brave, and my fancy 1617-drilled baseplate from patwarner.com hasn't come in yet, so I picked-up the $10 plastic bushing kit that fits the Craftsman baseplates for the moment.
This evening, I had a chance to set up and try the jig on a few joints. Upon opening the box, the first thing that I found was a label that one is instructed to immediately place over the existing label on the jig. The label contains setup information for the template and fence settings on the jig for different stock during common operations. The original label was missing the words "pins" and "tails" for through dovetail setup, which could be a little confusing.
The rest of the jig was packed quite well. Assembly involved installing the two cam-lock handles on the clamps, and the jig was pretty much ready to go. This newer version of the jig comes with three 8mm shank bits, and a 1/2" -> 8mm collet sleeve, along with a PC-style 7/16" brass bushing and lock ring. The bits include an 8-degree dovetail bit, a 12-degree dovetail bit, and a straight bit.
The instructions were pretty easy to follow, and gave useful hints for folks who might be new to, or do not frequently use, dovetail joints. Interestingly, the instructions guide one through doing half-blind joints first. I thought that this would have been the harder joint to do first, and I wanted to experiment with through dovetails first, so I jumped-ahead to the through dovetail instructions.
Through dovetails are pretty easy on this jig. It is easy to set it up for repeated cuts, and I was able to do a number of repetitions quite quickly and easily. The instructions have one cut the tails first. This is done with the dovetail bit, and goes pretty quickly. Setting-up for the pins is again quite easy, but here I found one slight defect in my jig: The templates use keyed holes for mounting to the jig using supplied keyed bolts and hand nuts, and one of the holes in my pins template was not centered in the key, meaning that I had to turn the key sideways and hold it lightly to tighten the nut on that side. No matter, though, as the cuts were almost perfect on the first try, using the recommended settings. Cutting the tails is done with the straight-cutting bit, and went pretty smoothly. The templates are handily marked with directions to make the joint more loose or more tight, depending on the initial test-fit.
Half-blind dovetails are just about as easy. They are all cut with the tails template and the dovetail bit. Stock setup is a little different, but again quite easy. I had to make a slight adjustment in the positioning of the "stop bar" depth fence on my cuts because the Bosch/Craftsman baseplate is slightly bigger than the standard PC baseplate. The instruction booklet gives a quick mathematical formula to figure out this distance quickly, which would be helpful for folks with non-standard baseplates. As it was, I only had to adjust by about a small amount, so I just did an initial adjustment by eye, and ran a test piece to see if it worked. I was lucky. :)
Overall, I'm quite pleased thus far with this jig. Setup was fast and easy, and I was cutting dovetails in well under thirty minutes after unpacking it. I will one day have the D1600, or the D4, or whatever jig is the "new" Leigh at the time, but this one is well made and I expect it to last for quite some time. The real test will be with a few small projects (a small mail-keeper for our home is first on the list, followed by something for the kitchen to hold sugar packets and tea) that I'm planning to get the hang of the jig before using it on its first cabinet project.
I hope maybe this will help someone who might be on the fence about this jig.
jonathan