Tablesaw Dovetail Jig Ver 1

[gee-dub]

Many thanks to Micks for showing his tablesaw dovetail jig in his medicine chest thread.  I have wanted to try dovetails on the tablesaw for some time but, always wanted to do both tails and pins.  I had seen various methods for doing one or the other but, Micks showed a combined method.  This knocked some rust off my thought process and I drew something up at lunch today.  After work I took a shot at version 1.

I try to make anything that will do it, pull double duty.  My percolation led me to a mod for this small sled that I use primarily for boxes.

I make all my sleds with replaceable ZCI's.  When I make up blanks I make a bunch.  That way blanks are handy for on-the-spot inspirations ;-)

I load up some blanks to use for the 7 degree tiled cuts and presto, virgin soil.

The 7 degree tilted cuts for the tails are easy, no extra stuff required.  However, I don't have a 7 degree blade yet.  I wanted to see if the idea was workable for me before I took that step.  At any rate, my modification/addition requires some 7 degree stock.

I mill it to accept my Rockler Universal clamps with either side down.  This will make sense in a second.

The assembled add-on looks like so.

Here it is mounted one way.

And another.

I remove the add-on and run my first 7 degree tilted cuts for the tails.  You can see the dilemma caused by my TCG raker on my rip blade.  I have an FTG blade too but, a little chisel work and I can move on.

Time to clamp on the add-on.

I'm beating a dead horse but, heres the clamps with one side up and then the other.

I use two clamps when the jig is in use.

Alignment is easy and repeatable.  I just reference off a block against the outer edge of the sled.

Taking into account this is my first run, no custom blade and I used some plywood scraps . . . not too shabby.

They certainly won't win any prizes but, I think with better material and a few more trial runs I may start to do better.

I'm busy around the house this weekend but, may be able to squeeze in some more shop time on Sunday.  If I do another run and its worth reporting, I'll just add it on here.

 

[davestanton]

Looking good, keen to see how it all pans out.

[Mick S]

Great concept gee-dub! I'm going to work on a similar jig once I finish this project and a model of my next one. I really like the double ended indexing. 

I have found that if you plan on doing much TS dovetailing at all it's worth the investment in a blade ground to the 7 degree or whatever angle you like. With a little care in setting the blade height you can do almost 100% on the saw.

Thanks for posting this!

[Ronn W]

I  like that way you think.

[gee-dub]

Now its getting interesting ;-)

 

[Isaac]

Are you doing clean up with chisels after cutting the sides?

[gee-dub]

Sides of the pins or tails? ;-)

Only if I don't get a good fit right off the saw.  Practice is making me better but, I do use a chisel to make an errant pin fit if things are too snug.

[Isaac]

Sorry I'm trying to understand how you get a smooth bottom. In your first images you have a shot of some in progress tails, I'm trying to understand how you move from that to a nice smooth surface.

[gee-dub]

8 hours ago, Isaac Gaetz said:

Sorry I'm trying to understand how you get a smooth bottom. In your first images you have a shot of some in progress tails, I'm trying to understand how you move from that to a nice smooth surface.

Sorry Isaac, that was my misunderstanding the question.  You asked it right, I just didn't receive well.  I do need to chisel the "bottoms" of the tails flat as I do not have a 7 degree ground blade.  You can see Michael Pekovich using one here.

Michael went with a 7-1/2" degree blade.  I chose not to split hairs and went with 7 degrees. I have never been a heavy user of dovetails but, people expect them so I thought I would try this out and see if it would inspire me to use them more often.  I didn't want to drop the money on a custom ground blade till I was convinced that I would make use of it.

As you can see from the picture, even with the custom ground blade there is some chisel work to flatten the bottom between the tails.  The major benefit of the custom grind is the perfect corners of the pin holes.  The material to be removed is really minor and if you scribe both faces and use the scribe mark as a chisel reference it is pretty fool proof . . . providing you have a narrow, dovetail style chisel so you don't foul the corners.

If I am still not answering the question, hit me again.  It will sink in sooner or later ;-)

[Isaac]

1 hour ago, gee-dub said:

Sorry Isaac, that was my misunderstanding the question.  You asked it right, I just didn't receive well.  I do need to chisel the "bottoms" of the tails flat as I do not have a 7 degree ground blade.  You can see Michael Pekovich using one here.

Michael went with a 7-1/2" degree blade.  I chose not to split hairs and went with 7 degrees. I have never been a heavy user of dovetails but, people expect them so I thought I would try this out and see if it would inspire me to use them more often.  I didn't want to drop the money on a custom ground blade till I was convinced that I would make use of it.

As you can see from the picture, even with the custom ground blade there is some chisel work to flatten the bottom between the tails.  The major benefit of the custom grind is the perfect corners of the pin holes.  The material to be removed is really minor and if you scribe both faces and use the scribe mark as a chisel reference it is pretty fool proof . . . providing you have a narrow, dovetail style chisel so you don't foul the corners.

If I am still not answering the question, hit me again.  It will sink in sooner or later ;-)

This answers it. I was trying to see if you had some magic way using only a table saw to get a perfectly flat and parallel base across the entire tail bottom. I'm mentally comparing this process it a router jig, which does leave a smooth bottom, though you can have other issues, like tear out, to wrestle with.

[Mick S]

Only reawakening this thread because I have to do a demo for a class next week. There is a simple way of cleaning to the corners of the tails without having a specially ground blade. A quick Youtube search yielded this gem from way back...