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This looked like it would do the same thing for less, and it kinda does. So I'd say buy this one if you're not going to use it much, but definitely don't if you're making furniture for your whole house.Oh, one other thing. I eventually settled for dovetails that were a little off, then took the sander to them. Each plastic stop is held in place by two screws, and the horizontal and vertical stops are not connected.
This thing is HEAVY. Even when you get it set where you want it, it has a tendency to move when you tighten the screws. If I had it to do over, the $120 Porter Cable would be much more tempting, but that's a lot of money for a piece of metal. The other problem is that the template is very loose until you clamp it down. Even with all of those negatives, the price is good enough that I don't really regret buying it. I bought this after seeing the Porter Cable model at my local store and being shocked by that model's $120 price tag.
To get your dovetail to line up, your wood must be at exactly 1/2" offset, but getting the stops in exactly the right place to make that happen is nearly impossible. The Porter Cable model uses a single stop that straddles the edge and has the 1/2" offset built into it. After about 20-30 test cuts I got this to do a "good enough" job. I believe other models have a better system where the template can only move forward and backward. The #1 biggest problem with this model is the way the stops work. If Jet offered an "upgrade" to that kind of stop, it would be well worth it.
In a good way. You have to be very careful to make sure it's square before you tighten down on it, or you will end up with a crooked dovetail.
Use a search engine to locate an on-line source for a decent manual. The dovetail jig works just fine. The user manual is lousy and just plain wrong in several key places. All-in-all, a good product for the price. Be aware that this is not a 12-inch jig, but rather a 11.5-inch jig as adjusting bolts limit actual stock width to 11.5 inches or less.
Jig is well built and works well, alittle time consuming to adjust but when set up is nice
The Craftsman saw some heavy use. One look at the results and it is obvious that this will not produce a workable dovetail.If you have countless hours to spend trying to figure out how to make this dovetail jig work, go for it. The instruction manual is the most useless piece of misinformation I have ever laid my eyes on.Set your router bit 7/8" below the base as they recommend, and see what happens. I received this as a gift for what I thought would be an "upgrade" from an old Craftsman dovetail jig. If not for the plastic construction, it would probably be still in use.I have also had several opportunities to use the Porter Cable 12" dovetail jig with excellent results.I have over 25 years experience as a woodworker, building custom cabinets, furniture and other specialty items. If you want a dovetail jig that will work for YOU - look somewhere else. The first time I attempted to work with this Dovetail jig, to add to our bedroom set of Honduran Mahogany, I was livid.
The manual is pretty dismal, took a couple hours of trial and error to get everything locked in the way I wanted. Once I got the jig set it did a pretty good job, it repeated nicely and I had no problems with any of the pieces or parts. I don't think I would have bought a dovetail jig for myself, or if I had it would have been a much larger one. I will keep this jig and use it when I have "production" work to do, but for individually sized box's, I can cut the dovetails by hand in the time it would take to set this jig up.
Would be nice to use one on the hope chest's I seem to making more of. Haven't seen or used any others so my impression may be wrong on this. Seems flimsy but does do the job. With the Lee Valley/Veritas dovetail guide and dovetail saddle, layout and cutting on smaller pieces is pretty quick and accurate. For the price I think this jig will be hard to beat, and would recommend it as a first jig, or one for occasional use.
The clamping system does an adequate job of holding the wood in the jig. The joints fit well and look nice, so I guess I am happy with the results. That being said, I do miss some of the satisfaction I get out of cutting them by hand. Usually cut my dovetails by hand as most of my jewelry box's are 4" or less in depth. It probably would have taken me 6hrs to cut and fit them by hand.
Figured I could set the jig up and then cut all the dovetails for the 12 box's in one session.The jig, at first, does not seem overly robust. I recieved this jig for xmas last year, but just unpacked it this month. I ended up making 6 "shop box's" before I was happy with the results. I agree with the previous reviewer who said to use a straight bit to hog out first then use the dovetail bit to finish. They tend to be 18"-20" deep and cutting the dovetails by hand takes up a lot of time. So.two hours of actual labor saved.
I have a xmas project for 12 jewelry box's this year, for granddaughters, and decided they would all be basically the same design, but using differant woods for each.Also they will be 7" deep. This makes for a nicer finish on the joints, leaving just a little cleanup. I figure that was 4 hrs actually cutting on the jewelry box's. Counting setup and cutting time it took about 6 hrs to do all 12 box's.
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