Porter Cable dovetail jig

[Kevin]

Anyone have one?
The instructions say to adjust the bit depth to 3/8" but shouldn't the bit depth be adjusted to half the thickness of the work for half blind dovetails?

[LeeB]

I recon 3/8" is for 3/4" material. I don't have any kind of jig, so I really don't know.

[Kevin]

That's what I was thinking but there isn't any reference to the thickness of stock in the manual.
It will accommodate 1/4 to 1 1/8"stock.
With 3/8 or less you'll cut right through the work.

[ksu_chainsaw]

At work, I have a 16" Porter Cable jig, and I have a hard time working with stock less than 5/8" thick.  Since the jig is set up for a certain spacing, i find it hard to adjust the depth too much.  I got so frustrated with trying to set it up each time I used it, I now just use 3/4" cabinet grade plywood in it, and have one router permanently set up to cut the dovetails, so I don't have to spend forever adjusting the depth. 
Just my 2 cents.

Charles

[Kevin]

I did find this information,

The section of the pin board that is not to be cut (thus forming the blind portion of the joint), is called the lap. The lap on the board should never be less than 1/8" thick, yet should never exceed 1/3 of the pin board's thickness, to ensure the strength of the dovetail joint.

This tells me that the bit requires different depth settings for different thickness in material.

For a workpiece that is 3/8" you would leave a 1/8" lap which leaves 1/4" which does not exceed 1/3 of the boards thickness.

3/8" stock is about as small as you can work with when cutting a blind dovetail.

I then found this link which tells me Porter Cable instructions stink.  :

http://www.newwoodworker.com/dovetails.html

[pigman]

I have  had a P C dovetail jig for about five years. I keep a bit in a cheap  router and  I never change the bit depth. I use 1/2 through  1 in thickness material.

[Ironwood]

I was recently told by my local cabinet supply rep that PC no longer has the aluminum template part available, .............so take care of the ones you have (buy every cheap one you see at the flea market) and hord them if you like them.

          Ironwood

[Don_Papenburg]

I bought one this feb . never used it yet .  But I have a bunch of dovetails coming up .  I wanted the expensive one that they just came out with but it was not available then .  I gues that I could have waited as it turned out.

[Kevin]

We're cooking with dovetails now!

:D

[Larry]

Looks good to me Kevin. 

I also have the PC jig...first time I got everything figured out I marked all over the jig with a laundry pen to make it easier the next time around.

As pigman suggested a dedicated router works well...cheapest one you have or pick one up at a garage sale.

PC did have an advanced instruction manual in PDF on there website which is quite interesting...can't find it at the moment. :-[

[Haytrader]

I bought a set from Rockler and I promise to get it out of the box in 08

[Kevin]

That was just some scrap spruce I had laying around.
The joints were hammered together and they won't come loose now.
Really a good tight fitting joint.
I documented the finished size and where tear out was present so I'll have something to work with when I start a project.
There are two sides of the jig to work from and I thought I could speed things up by working both sides but it's better to stay to one side of jig and rout all four sides from there.

[pigman]

Keven, you will find that you will have to use both sides of the jig for best results. To keep the pins and tails the same on both sides of the drawer you should keep the bottom of the drawer boards against the stops. Now I have myself so confused that I don't know what I am saying, but I do use both sides of the jig.

[Kevin]

I see what you mean about that and it's good to know, I'll add that to my notes.
These boards were cut at 3 1/4" so the pins and tails are equal top and bottom.
When you stay with 2 1/4, 3 1/4 , 4 1/4 etc.
everything should be equal.

To keep the pins and tails the same on both sides of the drawer

Hey Bob, after thinking about this I don't think there's a problem using just one side of the jig regardless of board size because the pin and tail locations are determined by the fingers on the jig so they will all be even in the end .