How to Make a Blind Dovetail Jig

so if you've been following me on Facebook Instagram or Twitter you probably know that we've been really busy here making all new Robo benches for our school to replace our old ones one of the nice features about the bench is the beautiful dovetails that caps tail vise now I cut the first one by hand and it took me about an hour and with 21 benches to build and a deadline to meet I thought there's got to be a faster way so I came up with a jig that cut my joint making time to about 10 minutes simply using a table saw and a trim router now I know some of your peers out there is going to say well wait a minute they're now now surely you're not seriously thinking about breaking a century-old tradition are you or surely you don't seriously think that your method is better than the old master craftsmen or surely you're not seriously advocating power tools over hand tools are you well now I mean all I'm saying is that there's always more than one way of doing something and all I'm suggesting is that we go out to the shop with an open mind and just let me show you another way okay oh one more thing don't call me Shirley now before we start making our jig we always want to draw it offers make sure that we like what we see proportion-wise once we're happy with it then we can transfer it over to the material that would be making our jigs with here I have a couple of samples and they look very similar but I think I like this one better I just prefer the pins be a little bit closer together so just a matter of preference also I want to keep in mind that I'll be using a half inch pattern bit so the opening here where the router bit comes through has to be a little bit bigger than half inch so I made mine 9/16 it looks something like this the angular chose for the dovetail is a 1 to 6 ratio I have a couple of dovetail markers here this is a 1 to 6 and this is a 1 to 8 so all that means is that for every increment you have over at this time you have six increments over here that will give you a 1 to 6 special and for a 1 to 8 you have 1 increment here in increments over here and that will give you a 1 to 8 ratio angle now I heard that a 1 to 6 ratio is for softwood and a 1 to 8 is for hardwood because of the shallow angle it's easier to fit now for me if I'm going to go through the trouble of making a dovetail I don't care what density would I use I want people to note that it is a dovetail so I prefer a more steeper angle yes a little bit more fuller looking more like a dovetail I just don't want people to come up and says a nice box joint where they're not the correct them says no it's dovetailed and they're going to say yeah sure whatever not that I'm happy with the look of my tough tail I'm going to transfer this over to the material that I'll be making my jigs from this is a 3/4 inch Baltic birch and the measures around 7 inches by 5 inches because the dovetail is symmetrical I like to work off center to find Center I just basically use a combo square set at 3 and a half I strike a line and I flip it over and I strike the line again and hopefully you only see one line once you find Center I just draw out the rest of my dovetail the key to this jig and to a good fitting joint is a spacer we're going to use this to make J for the pin and use it to cut the tail the width of the spacer is basically the distance between from one tail to the other right here like this now it doesn't have to be exact you don't need the caliper to measure this if it's a little bigger or smaller it really doesn't matter as long as we use the same spacesuit to cut the pin jig and the tails this way the spacer will be exactly the same you'll make sense when you see it in action I also want to set the height of the blade so I think I'm ready to glue up here but before I do I want to cut a little rabbit here for dust relief and also just in case my corner here is not perfectly smooth okay I think we're ready to glue up I have my stockier mill to exact size so this is all the jig that you need to cut the beautiful dovetail this is for cutting the pin and this is for cutting the tail so let's go cut the joint and see how it fits so I have my jig I'll set up and always like to work off of centerline as you can see I have my centerline of my jig match it up to the centerline of my stock and right down here is my depth of cut now obviously I'm not going to cut that in one pass because that's way too much material to remove so the rule of thumb is never cut deeper than the width of your blade in my case is half-inch so I'll probably do that in about four passes so from here I can remove my jig because now my bearing can actually right on the stop that I just cut now before I do that you're probably aware that the router can never get to my corners so since my jig is on here I'm just going to use that as a reference right my chisel on here and it's just kind of score it all my corners just for reference and that would give me a head start well I got all about it and it looks like I got a little chiseling to do so it's time to cut our tails so I'm just going to use the jig that I made use my marking gauge and use this as my depth of cut then I'm going to strike my line how'd that do that always like to work off-center so I'm just going to work a line here work the line here and I'm going to set my jig again from centerline to centerline right up to here and then I'm just going to trace it really click using a sharp pencil and I can use a marking knife if I want to but you'll see that you'll be fine okay so there is my waste there's my waste and this is my waste and I'm going to go to the table saw and we'll go and cut this to cut the tail I'll be using the table saw the angle and the height should be the same as when we make the jig so I'm going to precision for my first cut set my stop put my spacer in here it's just kind of double check for your second cut okay I think that looks pretty good I think we're ready to cut now I'm going to cut the shoulder using the table saw I have my stop setup so that I can cut right to the line I don't want to cut the shoulder off with this much waste here because when the blade cuts through my waste will be trapped between my blade and my stop and we might get a little kickback so I'm going to remove most of my waste using a bandsaw I probably remove some of this too well okay I think I'm ready to do a dry fit but before I do I like to chamfer all the inside edges here it's not going to be seen anyways and it kind of helped funnels the joint right in there for the edges here I'm just going to use my plane alright alright not too shabby now as you know this jig you can customize it to fit any size and spacing of dovetails you want it's not just for the rouble bench so I hope this video will give you some ideas for maybe future projects now my school will be starting in a couple of weeks and I'm gonna have a pretty busy teaching schedule but I still want to put out more videos for you guys so if you want to support my channel hit the subscribe button I really appreciate that and I'm going to work harder than Donald Trump's hairspray in a hurricane see you in the next video you

Channel: William Ng

Views: 387,832

Rating: 4.9557548 out of 5

Keywords: Blind dovetail, dovetail jig, woodworking, how to, dovetail jig router, dovetail jig diy, dovetail jig setup, dovetail jig for router, dovetail on table saw

Id: Y-BZcwmeSyI

Length: 13min 58sec (838 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 06 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/stroker351w]

I'm glad he decided to continue making vids. He was AWOL for a while.

[u/wolv]

I really like how comprehensive Ng's videos tend to be, even if they're a little dry.

This sort of jig is old hat for me, since I do a ton of pattern-based routing, but this is a really good primer for those who haven't done much of this sort of thing.

Also, for anyone on the fence as to the quality of the Harbor Freight bar clamps (for light work), looks like they're good enough for him :D

[u/beeruss]

I got extremely lucky that when I was looking for local woodworking classes in the area William had a fundamentals class about to start - such a nice guy who knows his stuff.

Definitely going to get back to his workshop for another class this year!

[u/noshoptime]

william ng also has the most badass pattern bit in the world. that thing is a monster, and cuts as smooth as i've ever seen

[u/elcapitanshovel]

Thanks for posting this video! I bought a rockler dovetail jig a while ago and is fine, but limited. Just built my first dovetail using this jig and will definitely be keeping it. Just subscribed to William's channel as well! Great resources!

[u/Racheakt]

I am new to the hobby, I think I am going to enjoy making jigs almost as much as making "stuff"

One Question, in this he "squared off" the routed parts to make the sharp angles, is that an aesthetic thing? I mean would it hold just as well if they were rounded?